Aims and ideals in art

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Ulrich Middeldorf

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AIMS AND IDEALS IN ART

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PORTRAIT OF P.ALTHAZAR CASTIOLIONE

AIMS AND IDEALS
IN ART

EIGHT LECTURES DELIVERED
TO THE STUDENTS OF
THE ROYAL ACADEMY

GEORGE CLAUSEN

A.R.A., R.W.S.

PROFESSOR OF PAINTING IN THE ROVAL ACADEMY

WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS

METHUEN & CO.
36 ESSEX STREET W.C.
LONDON

First Published in igo6

NOTE

These Lectures were given in 1905 and
1906 ; and, with the exception of a few
alterations in form made necessary by
pubHcation, are printed as they were
dehvered. I desire to express my
thanks to the President and Council of
the Royal Academy, to the authorities
of the British Museum, to M. J. E.
Buloz, and to the Vasari Society, for
kindly permitting me to reproduce
drawings ; and I wish to gratefully
acknowledge the assistance given me
by Mr. Sidney Colvin, Mr. Laurence
Binyon, and Professor Rapson.

G. C.

V

f

CONTENTS

PACK

1905 I. On Truth to Nature ; and Style . i
„ II. Imagination and the Ideal . . 25
„ III. Invention ..... S3

IV. Taste 79

1906 V. Drawing . . . . .107
„ VI. Drawing . . . . .125

VII. Quality in Colour . . .139
,, VIII. The Relative Importance of Sub-
ject AND Treatment. . , 165

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING PAGE

Portrait of Castiglione . Raphael Frontispiece
Coin of Terina ...... 8

Throne of Venus (Right side) . . .12
Throne of Venus (Left side) . . . -13
Study of Bather (Drawing) . Michelangelo 16
The Mass of Bolsena (Right side) . Raphael 34
The Mass of Bolsena (Left side) . Raphael 38
Wall Painting from Pompei . . . .48

Study for Composition (Drawing) . Tinioret 56
Study for Composition . Veronese 60

Study for Composition . Bassano 61

Study for Composition . Bloemart 64

Landscape Study . . ,, • Rembrandt 65 ^
The Miracle of the Fish . . Masaccio 69
Christ's Charge to Peter . . Raphael 70
Study of Arms and Hands (Drawing) Diirer 109
Study of Figure . . „ • Raphael 114

Study of Drapery . . Ingres 115

Study of Figure . . „ • Leighton 118

ix

X

List of Illustrations

Study of Figure .

FACING

(Drawing) Waits

PAGE
119

Study of Figure .

Millet

127

A Group of Trees

Claude

130

An Interior .

>>

. Rembrandt

Study of a Tree Trunk

> )

Claude

141

Study of Boats

> 1

Claude

146

A River and Trees

>»

Claude

152

Mother and Child

Watteau

157 J

Study of Landscape

>)

Gainsborough

160

Study of Landscape

Titian

161

The Engraver

>>

Watteau

167

Seated Figure

Watteau

176

A Winter Landscape .

>>

. Rembrandt

180

I

ON TRUTH TO NATURE ; AND STYLE

I

I

ON TRUTH TO NATURE; AND STYLE
^ IR JOSHUA REYNOLDS, in his notes on

><J Du Fresnoy's Art of Painting, very truly
says that " The study of nature is the
beginning and the end of theory. It is in
nature only we can find that beauty which is the
great object of our search : it can be found nowhere
else : we can no more form any idea of beauty
superior to nature than we can form an idea
of a sixth sense, or any other excellence out of
the limits of the human mind. We are forced
to confine our conception even of heaven itself
and its inhabitants to what we see in this world.
Nothing can be so unphilosophical as a sup-
position that we can form any idea of beauty or
excellence out of or beyond nature, which is
and must be the fountain-head from whence all
our ideas must be derived.

3

4

Lectures on Painting

"This being acknowledged, it must follow, of
course, that all the rules which this theory,
or any other, teaches, can be no more than
teaching the art of seeing nature. The rules of
art are formed on the various works of those
who have studied nature the most successfully :
by this advantage, of observing the various
manners in which various minds have con-
templated her works, the artist enlarges his own
views, and is taught to look for and see what
otherwise would have escaped his observation."

This really sums up the matter, and I can do
no more than try, by touching on some points
of detail, to help you to arrive at some sort of
standard, some definite idea of what should be
an artist's aim ; what idea of truth or what
aspect of nature are best worth our trying to
express : for every picture, even the worst,
has some measure of truth to nature, otherwise
it would not be recognisable. We have to find
for ourselves some meaning for " nature," some
standard of truth.

The Greek artists, and in a lesser degree the
great Italians, expressed more perfectly than

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 5

others a type of form which we recognise as
approaching an ideal of perfection. These are
true to the type rather than to the individual ;
while, on the other hand, an artist like Velasquez
is truer than others in giving the natural appear-
ance of the individual. The portraits of Raphael,
of Velasquez, and of Rembrandt, are each true
to nature ; and it may help us, perhaps, to hold
our way amidst contradictory or opposite ten-
dencies in art, to remember that there is no one
truth to nature, for nature contains all truths
and includes all manifestations : and " truth
to nature " is a loose and inexact phrase which
we use to support our individual point of view.
The finest works include more than one kind of
truth, and so are nearer to nature.

A mean, poor view of nature may be chosen,
and may be painted truly ; that is to say, the
picture may correspond to the idea of its painter :
but however great the painter's accomplish-
ment, it will be a poor picture. It is, though,
true, in a way, to say that it does not matter what
object is painted, if it is painted well : for good
painting justifies itself. The question is, what do

6 Lectures on Painting

we mean by good painting ? It may be only
smart execution, or it may be, like the noble
realism of Watts, the expression of a fine under-
standing of his subject. We come back to the
necessary thing : the " art of seeing nature."

Truth of resemblance does not cover the
whole ground of art ; much of the finest work
appeals on other grounds ; through subject, or
sentiment, and demands that the spectator
be in sympathy and prepared to receive its
message. It is not the greatest works which
have the largest number of admirers; these do
not impress people at once, but are received with
indifference, or even with a measure of hostility.

You will remember that Reynolds, in speaking
of Raphael's frescoes in the Vatican, and his
inability to understand them at first, says the
custodian told him that many persons who
came expressly to see these works had passed
through the rooms without noticing them, and
at the end asked where they were ; and he
confesses to his own disappointment on first
seeing them. The impressions of nature in the
minds of these people, and in his mind, had

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 7

practically no correspondence with the impres-
sions of nature which were in the mind of Raphael.
Yet, if Raphael had not been true to nature,
if his works were not founded on a deep under-
standing and great knowledge of nature, it is
inconceivable that they should have gained,
and should still retain, the admiration and
esteem of the artistic world.

It is easier for us, perhaps, to recognise the
fine qualities of Raphael's art in his portraits
than in his large compositions, which are in a
sense too familiar to us, too much a part of our
inheritance, for us to think of them critically ;
they have become commonplaces, and we cannot
estimate the greatness of his achievement. But
in his portraits we come nearer to him, and
such works as the portrait of Castiglione in the
Louvre, or the portraits in the Uffizi, or the
Pope Julius in our National Gallery, are,
I think, unsurpassable, in their truth to the
essential things in nature, the structure and
character ; the modelling is firm and thorough,
and close to the form. The Castiglione seems
to me to rank even with Velasquez's portrait

8

Lectures on Painting

of Philip in the National Gallery, in the sense
of atmosphere which it has, in addition to its
other fine qualities.

These portraits of Raphael show what is
called a sense of style. Now, what is style ?
The word is used in two senses ; as when we
speak of the style of Rubens, or of Rembrandt,
we mean rather their manner : but when we speak
of the style of the Parthenon Marbles, we mean
something beyond mannerism, something that
expresses as closely and completely as possible
the beauty and subtlety of nature. The highest
praise we can give to the finest work (such as,
for instance, that splendid figure the Ilyssus,"
which is perhaps the most beautiful of all the
Parthenon Marbles), is only to say that it is
true to nature ; that it represents very truly
a fine type of form. But then, it may be said
that a photograph, or a cast from nature, are
the finest things attainable ; and if the aim of
art were only to present a close copy of a station-
ary thing, I don't see how this can be gainsaid.
However true these things may be, they seem
to lack intention; and the fact of an artist

COIN OF tp:rina

(enlarc;ed)

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 9

making anything, whatever his material, pre-
supposes some intention on his part. There is
something he wishes to say; some measure of
action, some kind of expression ; and it is in
giving this, with the truest expression of form
and colour, that the painter's work lies. And
although faces and figures vary infinitely, they
all refer in greater or less degree to the normal
type ; and though this is rather felt in the mind
than seen by the eye (though, of course, the
impression must come through the eye), it
should be expressed and conveyed to the mind
of those who see the artist's work.

All the complex tendencies of an artist's mind
are seen in what he does, so that it is not possible
to isolate, as it were, one quality from the others,
and exactly define it ; but one may make a
rough attempt. And it seems to me that style
does not depend on symmetry, nor on propor-
tion ; for we find in examining such works as the
little Greek statuettes, the so-called Tanagra
figures, that they are sometimes ill-proportioned,
or even clumsy, yet that they have what is called
the charm of style. I think that this quality

lo Lectures on Painting

called style, rests, first, on expressive action,
on structural rightness ; and when we see it at
its finest, on this truth of action, expressed
with the closest approach to the finest type of
form. And I think, too, that underlying this
there must be a creative impulse of the artist ;
that his aim is to express something, not merely
to copy.

As the quality of style depends rather on
form than on colour, we may perhaps refer to
ancient sculpture as showing this more clearly ;
and especially, I think, it may be seen in the
small figures and in the coins. An illustra-
tion is given of a small coin of Terina in the
British Museum, which is about half an inch in
diameter ; no doubt the die was cut to that
size, and not reduced from a large model, as is
the practice now. The enlarged illustration
shows clearly the things which were thought
necessary to express ; that is, the main forms
and their direction ; everything else is ignored.

The so-called " Throne of Venus," a piece of
Greek work, in the National Museum at Rome,
may be instanced as a fine example of style.

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 1 1

It is a marble seat carved on the back and sides
with figures in relief (those on the sides are given
as illustrations) which are remarkable for the
beautiful austerity of their drawing. Nothing is
given that is not essential ; the modelling is as
close and true to natural form, and as subtle
as possible, although it has the appearance of
great simpHcity. All the fine antique work
should be studied ; especially, I think, after some
experience in the life class, when we can see the
reason of the ancients' generalisations. As it
is, we go through the antique room and forget
it as soon as we can ; but it is well worth while to
return to the best antique figures, not to copy
them, but to study them, as Michelangelo
studied the " Belvidere " torso, from which, he
said, an artist could learn everything.

It should be remembered that the Italian
artists had the advantage of reference to the
ancient works, and all the artists of the Re-
naissance should be studied ; especially, I think,
the early ones : Masaccio, Leonardo, Bellini,
Pisanello, and Mantegna. Pisanello was one of
the earliest and best ; he is particularly fine in

12 Lectures on Painting

his medals, which have the same firm, true
drawing, the same structural rightness and grasp
of essentials, that we find in the best Greek
work : and are perhaps the finest works in that
kind that have been produced.

The greatest artists of the Renaissance,
Michelangelo and Raphael, should of course be
studied. If, for instance, it is possible to
examine one of Michelangelo's figures, as it
were, from the outside only, for what it shows
us of his method, apart from the interest of its
intention ; it would seem that his aim is to give
movement, to express sentiment by movement.
And though it may be said that he exaggerates
the action and development of his figures, I
think it would be truer to say that he does not
go beyond the point of necessary expression.

His work is conceived from within. The in-
tention is that a figure shall express an erciotion
by its action. The action is imagined and
designed, and then comes the close study of
how this would be shown, which we can follow
to some extent from his existing studies ; and
a good example is that of the Bather, a drawing

National Museum, Rome
THRONE OF VENUS (RIGHT SIDE)

National Mnseutit, Rome
THRONE OF VKNUS (LEFT SIDE)

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 1 3

in the British Museum, given as an illustration.
It is one of the studies for the celebrated cartoon
of the soldiers bathing — the so-called " Cartoon
of Pisa," which was destroyed — and it shows
well his close and accurate drawing, and search
for appropriate muscular action ; a thing which
it is impossible to study in a life class, where a
stationary pose must be given : for movement
must be studied from movement. In his paint-
ings in the Sistine we see the summing up of
this mode of study, in figures which are not
carried beyond the point of emphasis which he
felt to be needful for expression. In the draw-
ings and studies of Raphael, too, we may see
the same search for movement, and the attitude
that will best express it. The great masters all
aimed at truth to nature ; and style, the com-
pletest, the most accomplished expression of
their knowledge, was the result. The aim, it
would seem, must be for truth, and not con-
sciously for style ; for this seems to deaden the
artist at once.

We cannot approach anything in a spirit of
absolute detachment ; our likings, our training,

14 Lectures on Painting

and the taste of the time, influence us in what
we admire in art, and see or seek in nature :
and we naturally base ourselves on the reigning
influence of the moment, without assuring our-
selves, by comparison with acknowledged stand-
ards, whether we are on firm ground. It is right,
of course, that an artist should be impression-
able, that he should be fully appreciative of the
good work of his fellows, that he should be
grateful to those of them who can help him ;
but why stop there ? He should remember
that the older artists who have attained mastery
can help. One should not say, " Oh, Titian is
all very well," or " Raphael is very great, of
course, but I'm not going in for that sort of
thing ! " but rather one should say, " What can
these men, too, teach me ? " Even if a painter
is, as we mostly are, concerned with the things of
the day, he should remember that the old men
had to use that which was before their eyes ;
that the sun shone and made things beauti-
ful, and that life went on then much as it does
now : and whatever may be the direction of his
talent, some one of the great artists is ready,

1

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 1 5

as it were, to take him by the hand. But it
would, for instance, be a mistake for a man
with a taste for genre, or still life, to embark
on an imaginative subject, simply because he
rightly believed it to be the highest form of art ;
many a capable painter has been lost that way.
And one should remember that great art can be
shown in the commonest and simplest things ;
as we may see in the work of Rembrandt, De
Hooghe, Vermeer of Delft, and Jan Steen ; or
of Chardin, who in that splendid still-life picture
in the National Gallery gives us a loaf of bread,
a bottle, glass and knife, so finely seen, or rather
the beauty of their appearance as expressed by
light, is so finely shown, that the little picture
outweighs many of far greater pretension.

Our tendency, in the search for literal, or
imitative truth, is to concentrate attention on
the rendering of the surfaces, textures, and
accidental appearances ; ignoring or neglecting
the deeper truths, the underlying qualities of
structure and movement : from which, in a
figure, we infer the intention, or in a tree, the
nature of its growth, and the influence it is

1 6 Lectures on Painting

under, and so on. These qualities I think
govern the other ones (or should). Of course
we must begin by literal imitation ; we must be
as exact in our studies as we can ; it is the only
way to learn. But it is not possible to paint
a live man if we only paint his skin. In every-
thing that moves, that has life of any sort, from
a figure, to a flower unfolding, or a tree bending
in the wind, something is conveyed by that life
and movement ; if we do not get this we fail ;
however beautifully we may finish up details,
the work has not the spirit of life. What we
find in the greatest works, that which keeps
them still living to us, is the artist's perception
of nature, expressed through his material. And
the greatest men see farthest. In criticising a
sketch or painting, nothing is more common
than to be met, on pointing out some obvious
fault, with the answer — " Well, I did it from
nature" ; or " It was just like that in nature " :
and one can only say — or think — " Is that all
you see in nature ? "

When Reynolds, who had been trained under
Hudson to paint in a literal way, came to under-

On Truth to Nature; and Style 17

stand the work of the great ItaHans, he felt, as

he said, that it was necessary for him to become as

a little child again, and learn anew ; and he became

what, for want of a better name, I suppose we

may call a stylist. Now, what was the difference ?

We all know Reynolds's mature work ; its

great charms are the ease of movement of his

figures, and the effective management of the

lighting. I do not know any of Reynolds's

earliest work, and but little of Hudson's ; but

we can infer Reynolds's early work from a

portrait of Newton by Hudson, in Trinity College,

Cambridge. It is a full-length sitting figure, in

the dress of the time. The head is well painted,

in a literal and rather hard manner, resembling

that of Hogarth, though not so good ; and it is

not related in lighting to the rest of the picture,

which is kept very dark, and is conventionally

painted. The picture is neither frank realism

nor fine convention. But we find that Reynolds,

as we know him, studied the lighting of his

pictures as one would compose a landscape :

and he used the effects of light and shadow to

express form, and to build up his picture, as
2

1 8 Lectures on Painting

Titian did : and if there is a quality belonging
to colour analogous to that of style in form,
I think it should be sought in this direction.
For if style, as expressed in form, depends on
the essential things, the close study of structure
and movement, so in colour should it not also
depend on its essential qualities ? Which are
the harmony and true relation of the parts,
under the influence of light.

The French painter Rousseau, in one of his
letters, says, " Everything springs from the
universal ; whatever interest one may take by
reason of religion, of manners, history, etc.,
in the representation of a subject, is of no value
except through the understanding of the universal
agency of the air — this suggestion of the in-
finite. Nothing can prevent a stone by the
roadside, round which the air seems to play,
from being a greater conception than some
ambitious work that is wanting in this spirit.
All the formal majesty of a portrait of Louis
XIV. by Lebrun or Rigaud, will be overthrown
by a tuft of grass clearly lighted by the sun ;
which is only to say, in a few words, that in

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 1 9

art it is better to be simple-minded than
clever."

The art of Millet, one of the greatest of the
moderns, confirms this. His inspiration was
drawn directly from the nature round about
him, yet his design has the same simplicity
and directness of appeal, the same quality of
style, as we find in Greek and other great art.
*' One is never so Greek," said Millet, "as in
painting naively one's own impressions, no
matter where they were received " ; and in his
drawings and paintings, with their true expres-
sion of unconscious actions, we seem to get
back to the simplicity of an older world. Some
of his designs have the completeness, simplicity,
and beauty of a Greek gem ; "an artist must
be moved himself if he is to move others," said
Millet. And that is the secret of it all, that
the artist must be true to himself ; men as
widely apart as Blake and Franz Hals (to take
extreme instances) were ahke in this. The
great school of Dutch painters were strong as
long as they, like the Italians, were true to their
natural sources of inspiration ; but how lament-

I

20 Lectures on Painting

able was the failure of those Dutch artists, who
thought to improve their style by adopting
Italian mannerisms ! Types and customs vary,
but the beauty of the air, of the sunlight, and
the shadow are, as Rousseau says, " of the
universal " ; so that things mean and sordid
in themselves, like the tavern scenes of Jan
Steen or Brouwer, may be so seen by the insight
of the painter into great truths of nature, that
they convey some vision of beauty.

Some years ago, that great artist, whose long
life has just ended — Mr. Watts — was good
enough to give me some advice, I was speaking
of the difficulty of doing something I was trying
to do, because I could not get a model to pose ;
and I said, " Of course one has to rely on memory.'*
" Yes," he said, " memory is a good thing, but
there's a better." I asked him what that was.
*' Knowledge," said he, and he took a piece of
chalk and made a drawing of the bones of the
knee. " There," he said, " when you really
know the shape of these bones, it doesn't
matter what position you draw the knee in,
you'll understand it." It was a most valuable

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 2 1

lesson, and made things clearer to me, and I
think it is worth recording ; for, as Reynolds
says, " An artist ought to see clearly enough
to enable him to point out to others the prin-
ciple on which he works." This gives point to
the great difference between knowledge and
skill. What we acquire in the life-class is mainly
skill. What we get by the wider study of nature,
and of pictures as guides or warning-posts, is
knowledge ; and, as we know, it is not always
the most skilful student who develops into the
greatest artist. Knowledge of nature should
control and direct the skill ; for if a painter has
only acquired imitative skill, the object of his
picture will naturally be to display it, and his
mind is the servant of his hand ; but if he has
some knowledge of nature, he must feel that,
however great his skill, it is as nothing compared
with the beauty of nature which he wishes to
express : his hand then becomes the servant of
his mind.

Reynolds says that the service of nature,
when properly understood, is perfect freedom."
This we may see in all the greatest artists, and

22 Lectures on Painting

I think it is this that gives to a masterpiece one
of its greatest charms ; the sense of being natural
and easily done. As nature does not suggest
effort, neither does the masterpiece, so that
it is as true to nature in its method of execution
as in its conception ; we do not feel the effort,
it exists, like nature. Someone has remarked
that the effect of fine painting is to make you
feel that you could do it too ; and this is some-
thing of the feeling one gets before work executed
with facility, such as that of Velasquez, of
Rubens, or of Veronese ; it looks as easy as
possible.

Methods may change, but the ideals and
aims of the artist remain as they have always
been, and are unaffected by time or place ;
we, when our turn comes, only go over the old
well-trodden ground. I came across some rules
on painting ^ the other day, from a Chinese
book called The Mustard-seed Garden, which was
published in the year 1680 ; and these rules
are quoted as being given by an ancient Chinese

^ In a book entitled A String of Chinese Peach-Stones : W.
A. Cornaby. Kelly, London, 1895.

On Truth to Nature ; and Style 23

artist of unknown date, though they might
have been written yesterday. Some extracts
may be of interest : —

" Excellence does not consist in multiplicity
of detail, nor in bare simplicity ; difficulty is
not art, nor is ease : non-accordance with rules
does not ensure an artistic style, and with
overmuch method the result may be highly
inartistic. First give rigid attention to all rules,
then follow your genius and break away from
them." " If you want to work without rules,
first follow every rule : if to paint with ease,
first take pains : if you would have a slight
and simple style, first study all the multitudinous
details."

Another ancient artist says, " When a picture
seems to be alive with motion and breath, as
though of heavenly creation, it may be called
a work of genius. When the touches are some-
thing above the ordinary, and the washes are
in accord with good taste, a fertility of motive
controlling the whole, it may be called a work
of excellence. When there is correctness of
form, and a general observance of rules, the

24 Lectures on Painting

result may be called a work of ability " — and he
sums up as follows : " With the breath of the
four seasons in one's breast, one will be able to
create on paper. The five colours well applied
enlighten the world."

II

IMAGINATION AND THE IDEAL

25

4

i

II

IMAGINATION AND THE IDEAL

IMAGINATION is the driving force of the
artist, whether he paints the visible beauty
of outward things, as did Velasquez, or
the fancies of the mind, as did Blake, a man
at the opposite pole of thought and temperament,
whose pictures have no conscious reference to
visual sensations. The painter's imagination
directs whatever he does ; and although the
word is commonly used in the restricted sense
in which we apply it to Blake, it seems to me
that for a good historical picture, or even for
a good portrait, some imaginative power is
required : some strong intuition, some dramatic
insight which dictates the point of view and
controls the artist's work. It would even seem
as if the possession of imagination alone, with
the very poorest technical equipment, makes the

27

28 Lectures on Painting

artist : not of course that it makes him a painter,
but that if he has a definite thing to express he
will find, somehow, the means of doing so. The
work of Blake is an excellent instance of this,
for in spite of his conventionalities, and from a
painter's point of view, the feebleness and
childishness of his execution, he conveys his
meaning, and in such a way that there is even
a charm in this weakness, telling of his struggle
for expression : as usually happens in an artist's
work, he tells more than he intends. Blake's
sublimity seems to me a little stagey ; his sim-
plicity is his finest quality.

Of course his style was formed largely on
that of Michelangelo, but his knowledge of the
master was derived from copies or prints, the
only material available, which exaggerated the
muscular action. It was not until photographs
of the Sistine frescoes were available for study,
that we could see how fine Michelangelo really
was ; how true in the delicacy as well as in the
force of his work.

Blake himself seems to have been quite uncon-
scious of any technical weakness ; indeed, he

Imagination and the Ideal 29

thought himself better, as a painter, than his
contemporaries. He says in his very character-
istic way, referring to imagination : "he who
does not imagine in stronger and better linea-
ments, and in stronger and better light, than
his perishing mortal eye can see, does not imagine
at all. The painter of this work asserts that all
his imaginations appear to him infinitely more
perfect, and more minutely organised, than
anything seen by his mortal eye." How this
contrasts with Reynolds's calm and reasonable
statement, " We can no more form an idea of
beauty superior to nature, than we can form
an idea of a sixth sense, or any other excellence
out of the limits of the human mind. We are
forced to confine our conceptions, even of heaven
itself, and its inhabitants, to what we see in this
world."

Still, Blake was able to express his ideas ; and
his pictures, because of this, touch us more than
any amount of capable and accomplished works
dealing with imaginative themes, but lacking
imagination. Blake expresses himself ; his work
leaves an impression on the mind, and this is

30 Lectures on Painting

one test of vital work : for, after all, it is ex-
pression which counts in art. One may recall
the well-known words of Blake, in speaking of
the sunrise, " What ! you will tell me that when
the sun rises you see a little round golden spot
like a guinea — I tell you I see all the hosts of
heaven, singing Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God
Almighty " ; and probably if he painted a sunrise,
he would feel it natural to symbolise it in that
way. But if we turn to the work of Turner, who
was a fine painter and a master of his materials,
as well as a man of great imagination, we find
that he had the same great view of nature, as
a living presence, although he did not personify
it as Blake did. For he was able to see and to
seize the elements in nature which give the
suggestion of life, and by putting them before
us, he arouses in us the same feelings as nature
does. In the one case there was the imaginative
insight only, the emotion received from nature,
but in the other there was also the artist able to
analyse the grounds of this emotion, and, having
great power of drawing, and knowledge of gra-
dation and colour at his command, to express it.

Imagination and the Ideal 31

The imagination of an artist is shown, I think,
rather in the treatment of his subject than in
his choice of the subject itself ; and one may
instance this by a comparison of the work of
Jan Steen or Metsu, with that of Mieris. In
the work of Steen or Metsu, although the common
things they painted are perfectly realised, one
feels that they are subordinated to the dramatic
incident of their subjects (or that the dramatic
incident is raised into prominence over them).
Exactly how this is done it is difficult to sa}^ ;
it is a question of the things the mind of the
artist most dwelt on, which thereby are somehow
brought to our minds. In the case of Steen or
Metsu it is the human interest, or the beauty
of the thing as seen ; we are made to feel some-
thing more than that so many items are com-
prised in the picture. But in the case of Mieris
there is an utter lack of imagination. It is true
everything is painted beautifully and minutely ;
one could take a lens to examine it : but he
paints his hares and cabbages and carrots and
things, with the eye of a marketing housewife
looking for defects, and his people too, in the

32 Lectures on Painting

same spirit. So that his work, for all its skill,
is poor. It tells us nothing.

The perfect union of technical skill with
great imagination is found in Michelangelo,
and only in him. His work attains perfection
in this balance of the finest qualities, for not
only are his figures true, in their expression,
to nature, but his workmanship, in its mastery
and skill, is perfect ; his sculpture bears com-
parison with that of the ancient artists. Such
well-known figures as the David, the Slave,
the Pieta in St. Peter's, and the beautiful bas-
relief in the Diploma Gallery, are masterpieces
technically, if it is possible to look at them
apart from all thought of their meaning ; but
they were not finished so finely only to show
his knowledge of anatomy, or of form, but in
order to give the utmost truth of expression.
His knowledge was gained that it might serve
his imagination ; we see in his work expressive
action carried to its extreme point, but not
exaggerated : and although his figures are indi-
vidualised, they include more than the individual,
for by fixing a characteristic action, they become

Imagination and the Ideal 33

typical. His figures are not vague abstrac-
tions, made to conform to a conventional heroic
or ideal type ; but they show differences of
build and of characterisation, as marked as we
find in life, so that in spite of their being re-
moved from us by their grandeur, they are
still individual, and human in their variety.
This may be seen in the frescoes in the Sistine
Chapel, where the figures of the prophets and
sibyls show a variety of types, as also do the
fine supporting figures between them ; these are
so individual that one can almost recognise the
different models used. It is rarely that he gives
a figure at rest ; he fixes the action of a moment,
the most telling expression of the thought.

Can work such as this be done by rule ? One
can recognise the imagination of an artist —
we feel Michelangelo's mind from looking at
his works better than if he had written his
ideas down ; and we see that certain elements
are used for expression. Yet his imitators
seemed to think that by using these elements,
beginning, as it were, at the other end, they
would produce imaginative work ; forgetting
3

34 Lectures on Painting

that, though they borrowed his properties, they
could not borrow his brains.

The impulse in his work is from within ; the
imagination directs. As Reynolds says, " There
are two modes of imitating nature, one of which
refers to the mind for its truth, and the other
to the eye." The work of Michelangelo, and —
at a distance and derived from it — that of Blake,
refers to the mind. They both give expression
to an imagined ideal. One cannot imagine
that Michelangelo would free himself from his
own strong bias, and become sufficiently detached
to face nature quite frankly, like a portrait
painter. His imagination governed his eyes,
and he used his models only so far as they served
his idea. This was not the case with Raphael,
for although his work also refers to the mind
for its truth, it refers, I think, more to the eye.
He was more in touch with the world, more
interested in his fellows. His imagination did
not so much evolve things from within, as it
assimilated and used things round about him.
He had more observation than Michelangelo,
or, it would be truer to say, a wider observation ;

Imagination and the Ideal 35

for no observation, no searching, could be closer
and deeper than that of Michelangelo : but it
was, as it were, directed always to one figure,
searching it to the uttermost. He did not, like
Raphael, express the relations of figures to
each other in a group, or the different play of
one character with another, which is one of
Raphael's greater qualities ; the one in which,
perhaps, he excels all other artists except Rem-
brandt.

Raphael's figures come so naturally and
beautifully into their places, and one often thinks
of their beautiful grouping ; while with Michel-
angelo, one thinks always of one or another
single figure : he was a solitary man and a
dreamer, disliking even the presence of his
assistants. Raphael lived surrounded by his
friends and pupils, he was interested in the
world ; and it seems to me that his painting is
at its best when he painted individuals, and
not abstractions. Some of his finest work,
that certainly which we are most able to appre-
ciate, is in portraiture ; and if one may presume
to say so, there seems, in the Vatican frescoes,

36 Lectures on Painting

where his fine quaHties of construction, character-
isation, and drawing are seen to perfection,
to be more enjoyment in the work, when he is
painting actual people. The " certain idea "
which, as he said, the painter must have in his
mind, did not control him altogether, as it did
Michelangelo ; and it is interesting to notice
in some of the splendid frescoes in the Vatican,
the difference between the beautifully drawn
and firmly characterised figures on the one side,
all evidently portraits, and the conventional
*' Raphaelesque " figures on the other. This
is particularly noticeable in the " Heliodorus,"
and in the " Mass of Bolsena " ; the side groups of
the latter fresco show a marked difference in
character ; one group we feel to be real and the
other unreal, and the strength and variety of
the realistic figures emphasises the sameness
in the types of the ideal figures : a same-
ness we do not find in Michelangelo. With
all their appropriateness of action, they do not
give us the same conviction as do the ideal
figures of Michelangelo ; we even see in them
the germ of that insipidity which marked his

Imagination and the Ideal 37

followers and imitators. And it is perhaps the
recollection of so much conventionality founded
on the external qualities of Raphael, that blinds
us to the real greatness of his work. He had
a wider range and a more sympathetic imagina-
tion than any other artist ; he was able to
gather from everything he saw, its typical
character ; so that, to every subject he painted,
he gave its most characteristic expression, and
fixed standards which still remain, for grouping
and composition. The group of Heliodorus
could not be attempted again without reference
to Raphael, nor could a Madonna, or any subject
which he treated.

The great genius that this shows has come
now to be taken for granted : it does not astonish
us. His work seems to have come about so
easily, so naturally, and it has been so long
with us, that we take it as a matter of course,
as we do the sky or the sunshine. It is not
until we begin to think it all out, that all this
had to be created ; not until we think of the
artist facing the great blank walls do we realise
how stupendous was his work. And if we pass

38 Lectures on Painting

from the consideration of isolated figures and
groups — no one ever grouped figures so finely —
to the design of such pictures as the " School of
Athens/' or the " Heliodorus," and consider the
placing of the figures and the design of the back-
ground ; if we study how these works are arranged
and controlled, and how natural and easy it all
seems, we must feel his true greatness, and that
his work belongs to the eternal things of art.

We must remember, however, that Raphael's
work was a continuation and development of
the earlier art ; the methods, and to some extent
the groupings employed, were those already
in use. But I think we may be sure that the
new things he won were reached through the
study of nature, by direct observation, not
only of people, but of lighting in nature ; for
the arrangement of the light, and the fine aerial
quality of colour, in the "School of Athens"
could only come that way, and the knowledge
how to light effectively a large number of figures
can only have been gained by first-hand observa-
tion. This broad and simple lighting, which
is one of the great charms of Italian work.

Raphael

THE MASS OF BOLSENA (LEFT SFDE)

Imagination and the Ideal 39

must have been dictated by the necessity of
fining large spaces ; for, as this requires a distant
point of view to be taken, the picture has to be
seen broadly ; but what is wonderful, especially
in Raphael's work, is that with all this there is
no sacrifice of necessary detail, and at close
quarters one can see that the figures are minutely
finished, and are hatched, like a drawing.

This form of art developed naturally in the
Italian Renaissance ; it does not develop
naturally with us. Our life is too complicated,
and its conditions are opposed to it ; we cannot
get the same opportunities for observation, and
a painter who essays imaginative work in this
manner now has nothing to lead him up to it ;
he cannot refer to nature, with older work to
guide him, but only, a long way back, to the
older work.

It is sometimes said, indeed, that there is no
scope for imaginative art nowadays ; but this
is not so, for imagination does not depend on
externals. If it exists, it will express itself freely
through the materials at hand ; and although
the art of the great Italians cannot be re-created.

40 Lectures on Painting

imaginative art is still possible, though its direc-
tion may be different. Rousseau, the French
landscape painter, said, "It is asked that art
should abandon retrospective history : that it
should confine itself to actuality and repudiate
the past. This is evidently a healthy and
fruitful idea, but the artist is essentially sensitive,
he is not master of his emotion, he paints best
that which moves him most. Go and tell
Delacroix to burn Shakespere, destroy Goethe,
Dante, and all who have inspired him ; tell
Gericault to forget the Iliad, Proudhon to give
up Longus and the great figures of Greek anti-
quity, Ingres to be false to Raphael. . . . The
artist has a right to his professional education ;
we can teach him to see well, to construct well :
but to feel, to be touched, is a matter which
concerns him and his temperament alone. He
must have the most perfect liberty of expression
and of development." This seems to me true
and wise. If we consider another great imagin-
ative artist, Rembrandt, whose imagination, like
that of Raphael, was nourished by his surround-
ings, we find that he, like Raphael, painted

Imagination and the Ideal 41

Scriptural subjects. Raphael used the hand-
some types of his fine race for models, Rembrandt
used very ordinary Dutchmen. Each had the
power of imagining and re-creating a scene,
and it is curious to notice the difference in the
nature of their appeal to us. Raphael's appeals
by its beauty, its general appropriateness and
rightness; so that, apart from the charm of his
figures, we feel that even if the events did not
happen as he has depicted them, they ought to
have happened so : we accept his version as
worthy of its subject. But the first impression
of Rembrandt, with his ugly and very ordinary
persons, is that these events cannot possibly
have happened in this way ; we have an idea
that it was nobler, more dignified, and so on.
But we find, when we get to know Rembrandt,
that he brushes all these ideas of dignity aside,
for it did not occur to him that the men and
women of Scriptural times could be different
from those of his own : and his pictures convince
us because he goes straight to the heart of his
subjects, re-creating a scene with all its emotion
and expression, and giving it a sense of reality

42 Lectures on Painting

that raises it far above the conventional view
impressed on our minds by the famihar tradi-
tional renderings. It is presented so truly that
it too becomes typical. All his amazing skill,
his knowledge of light, expression, colour, and
movement, is used in the service of his imagina-
tion, to bring the scene home to us. In such a
masterpiece as the " Hundred Guilder " plate,
how splendid is the grouping, and how fine the
sentiment expressed through the arrangement
of the light, with the line of sick people coming
forward out of the shadow ; and all the expres-
sions and incidents truly imagined, and something
more than that ; for he has expressed all the
possibilities of the scene so truly that his picture
is typical ; the subject has been done once for
all. And we find this living force of his im-
agination present throughout his work. There
is something more in his portraits than the cold
stare of the eye, there is the power of reaching
to and showing us the person within ; he makes
his portraits speak to us. His imaginative
power, though perhaps not so wide in its range
as Raphael's, is deeper; his work compels one's

Imagination and the Ideal 43

interest and sympathy, and leaves as profound
an impression on the mind as even that of
Michelangelo.

Rembrandt may be said to have fixed the
type of Dutch art, as Raphael did of Italian :
and his influence is still the guiding one in the
living Dutch school to-day : while in Italy, what-
ever influence reigns now among its painters, it is
not that of Raphael, or their other great masters.
Theirs is an art of the past. No one was great
enough to succeed the great Italians ; there was
nothing left but to follow at a distance ; and
these in turn had their followers, and the fresh
reference to nature dropped out of men's minds.
It is a curious comparison, that of Raphael
dying at the height of his fame and the life of
his school with him ; and Rembrandt dying
obscure and discredited, and his influence grow-
ing greater with time, and inspiring a school.
Both drew their inspiration from without ; one
aiming at an ideal perfection of form, the other
absolutely blind to it, accepting and using
whatever came to hand. One can hardly com-
pare them, or say which was the higher aim or

44 Lectures on Painting

the greater achievement, but if we take a great
man's work as a legacy to his successors, it
would seem that Rembrandt's was the more
fruitful ; and perhaps this is because the impulse
towards realising an abstract beauty is confined
to few, while the desire to express people and
things as they are will be felt by many ; and
that Rembrandt is still a living influence because
he comes nearer to us, and is, as it were, every-
body's friend, while men of kindred spirit with
the great souls of the past are rare, and their
road is difficult to tread.

There can be no doubt that Mr. Watts was
one of these rare spirits. It is not my place to
make, nor am I capable of making, a just estimate
of his great gifts, but I may touch on some
points in his work, which is as remarkable for
its great range as for its high aim. In the
first place, we may see that he had a thorough
command of his means ; he was a born painter,
and had a natural gift of expression. His early
pictures show this ; such a work as the " Wounded
Heron " is painted with an ease and accomplish-
ment equal to that of the best Dutch still-life

Imagination and the Ideal 45

painters. Indeed, it reminds one in many ways
of the early Velasquez in the National Gallery,
though it is not quite so stern. In the presence
of Mr. Watts's early work we feel that he knew
his business, and that in whatever direction his
nature had led him, he would have shown himself
a master : we are (as Millet said of Rousseau)
*' struck by the fact that a power is a power
from its very beginning." ..." You were,'*
Millet said to Rousseau, "from the beginning
the little oak which was destined to become
the great oak." We may see in Watts's early
work hints of the influences of the time, of
Lawrence, of Etty, and perhaps of Turner ; but
he soon finds himself, and in the splendid series
of his portraits and pictures, but especially,
it seems to me, in the portraits, we see how
thorough was his knowledge of form, how
true was his draughtsmanship, and how fine
his colour-sense. His heads are finely constructed
and modelled, and true in character ; nothing
is slurred over, nothing essential is sacrificed.
And they are remarkable among portraits in
another way : that everything is subordinated

46

Lectures on Painting

to the expression of character, to the extent
even that his method of work varies according
to the character of his sitter, so that there is a
kind of childhke, unconscious obedience of the
hand to the mind. If we notice the difference
in method between the portraits of Walter Crane
and of Lord Roberts, and some of his ladies' or
children's portraits, we see something of his
range. His colour is fine and true, with no forcing
for effect ; the relation of flesh to linen — to the
whites, as well as to the darks of his picture —
is so beautifully kept, that his colour seems to
have a wider range than that of the ordinary
palette. This is due to his fine sense of gradation,
and also to his fine sense of quality of colour ;
for though, as we know, it is not possible to get a
greater range than from white to black, yet a
greater variety in this range is produced by
varying the kind of colour (that is to say, by
using in some places solid, in others transparent
colours) than is possible if all the tints are mixed
and painted solidly. The transparent colour,
although it may be taken down to the full strength
of a shadow, yet has a brilliancy from the lighter

Imagination and the Ideal 47

ground beneath, which keeps it nearer to the
light ; and Mr. Watts's method in this is like
that of the great Venetians, and his colour has
the same range and fulness.

It seems to me that Mr. Watts's work divides
roughly into three stages : the first is the search
for truth and accuracy, the portrait stage ;
the second, for the expression of ideal beauty,
as we see in the " Daphne " and others of that
time, which are splendid examples of the way
an ideal subject should be rendered. It is not
enough for us to pose a model and paint a figure,
and call it Venus, or Juno, or what not, and
then to think we have painted an ideal picture.
The idea should be the starting point, and
should control both the design and its treat-
ment, and Mr. Watts's ideal figures are splendid
in this respect. They do not suggest the model
in the studio, but rather that he was inspired
by the finest Greek work, and tried to work
in its spirit. The finest of the antique painting
must have been very like his work of this time,
and the illustration given, from a fresco at
Pompeii, cannot fail to remind us of his work,

48 Lectures on Painting

and to show how thoroughly he entered into
the antique spirit.

Mr. Watts's third stage was the expression of
his imagination ; of his own feehngs. He seems
to have felt that it was not enough to record
things, that it was not enough to give aesthetic
pleasure, but that the object of his work should
be, in his own words, " to suggest, in the language
of art, modern thought in things ethical and
spiritual " ; he was not content to embody old
myths in fresh forms, but has given fresh forms
to ideas and problems which touch us now.
The question is often raised, whether in en-
deavouring to give pictorial form to abstract
ideas, he was not giving up the finest qualities
of the painter, such as we see in his portraits
and earlier works ; which come from his more
immediate touch with life. It may be so. For
my own part, these works appeal to me more,
but I do not propose to discuss it here ; and
indeed I do not think it really worth discussing :
we must take a man's life work as expressing
his nature and his convictions. This develop-
ment eame naturally to him, and whether by

(WALL-PAIXCIXC; FKo.M )'()Ml'KIl)

Imagination and the Ideal 49

reason of it our loss is greater than our gain,
there can be no question of the nobility of his
aim, nor of the greatness of his achievement ;
for such works as the " Hope," " Love and
Death," " Opportunity," and many others which
will occur to us, have, like great poems, passed
into our thought, and become part of our
inheritance.

A criticism is sometimes made of Mr. Watts's
work, especially of his colour, that though it is
no doubt very beautiful, and fine in effect, it is
all borrowed from the Venetians, and that we
should not go back for our inspiration, but
endeavour to create for ourselves as they did.
How far is this true ? If the only merits of
Mr. Watts's work were that it recalls the fine
qualities of the Venetians, and if his admirers
were content to copy these qualities from him,
and so on, we can foresee that deterioration
would result ; and there would be a reason to
protest, and to appeal for a fresh start. But
Mr. Watts's fine qualities are his own ; his sym-
pathy with the Venetians rests on his under-
standing of their use of colour as well as form,
4

50 Lectures on Painting

as a means of expression, and expression was
what he sought. He learnt from the Venetians
that colour speaks to us, that the mood of a
picture depends on the tone of its colour. For
example, a picture may be all painted in golden
tones, and so far, we may say, be untrue to the
actual look of things ; but within this golden
envelope all the true relations of parts may
exist, the general colour giving the key or setting
the mood of the picture. This is what Rem-
brandt did ; and I think we all, in our small
ways, try to use colour in this way. But it is
only when a man knows all the possibilities of
colour that he can do this well, and that he
becomes, like Mr. Watts, a master, having the
whole scale at his command. I am convinced
that we cannot get this knowledge if we only
study in the cold north light of a studio, or even
if we supplement this by study of the masters ;
but that we must go back to the old source, and
study the whole wide range of light and colour
in nature. Mr. Watts, like all great figure
painters, was also a landscape painter, and some
of his landscapes, such as " The dove that

Imagination and the Ideal 51

returned not," are as fine things as have been
done ; and it was, I feel sure, through the study
of landscape, not the study of little " bits,"
but of the great controlhng things, the sun and
the sky, in their relation to the earth and to
people, that he was able to find out the reasons
for the fine colour of the Venetians, and how
to use it for himself.

In looking at a picture, the mind refers to
more than is before the eye, to our consciousness
of things outside the picture. There may be
no sky in the picture, but our recollection of the
balance between sky and earth will be felt by
us ; and it seems to me in all Mr. Watts's pictures,
whether it is actually expressed in the work or
not, that the blue of the sky is the determining
point of the scale, in his mind : so that there is,
as it were, reflected back from his pictures —
it may be only in a vague suggestion — a sense of
harmony with the great elementary things of
nature, by subtle indications of their corre-
spondences with his figures. In some of his
pictures, too, the alternations of light and shadow
on the figures rouses the same feeling that we

52 Lectures on Painting

get in nature in noticing the play of light and
shadow over a wide country, and perhaps in-
directly recalls it. I do not pretend to know,
it is an obscure and difficult thing to trace ;
but something of this is, I fancy, at the bottom
of the sense of the life, and harmony with nature,
that we feel before his finest work.

Every development of his art seems to have
come naturally through his own mind, not, or
hardly at all, from others' ideas ; for he kept
apart from schools, and was throughout true
to himself and his ideals.

Ill

INVENTION

53

1

Ill

INVENTION

HE invention of a painter," says Rey-

his imagination the subject, in a manner best
accommodated to his Art." . . . "It includes not
only the composition, or the putting the whole
together, and the disposition of every individual
part, but likewise the management of the back-
ground, the effect of light and shadow, and the
attitude of every figure or animal that is intro-
duced or makes part of the work." And he
goes on to say that " composition, which is the
principal part of the invention of a painter, is
by far the greatest difficulty he has to encounter.
Every man that can paint at all can execute
individual parts ; but to keep these parts in
due subordination as relative to a whole, re-

nolds, "consists not in inventing his
subject, but in a capacity of forming in

55

56 Lectures on Painting

quires a comprehensive view of the art that more
strongly impHes genius than perhaps any quaUty
whatever." This is perfectly true, and most
admirably expressed. We must all have had
some such feeling, on looking at a fine picture
which we know to be far beyond anything we
can do ourselves ; such as, for instance, Veronese's
" Vision of St. Helena," which is very simple
in design. And if we examine each part, al-
though we may feel ourselves capable of painting
any one detail as well as it is done in the original,
we could no more paint the picture, that is,
design it as an original work, than we could fly ;
and we do not realise until, in spite of our skill,
we have made numberless failures, that we have
neither seen nor understood the mechanism of
the picture : the means by which its fine effect
is produced. We can appreciate the action and
intention of a picture, but so can the person
who is altogether ignorant of painting ; and we
can, in addition, appreciate the fine painting
of its parts : but we do not know enough to
understand its invention, how its elements are
put together so that it looks so well.

/// tnc author s possession
STUDY FOR COMPOSITION

(I'EN AND WASH DRAWING)

Invention

57

The qualities in a picture which appeal to the
artist are not the same ones which appeal to the
general public. The " man in the street " can
feel the sentiment of Sebastian del Piombo's
" Raising of Lazarus," or Rubens's " Descent
from the Cross," or the truth of Velasquez's
portrait of Philip, or of the pictures of de Hooghe ;
he can understand a story, but he cannot ap-
preciate, and would probably be quite blind to,
the qualities which make these works great. A
bad copy, if the expression were preserved,
would satisfy him ; he could appreciate, for
instance, the point of a drawing by Charles
Keene or Phil May, but he would, I fancy, be
equally pleased with a bad drawing, if it ex-
pressed the intention.

And as pictures are painted, not only for the
pleasure of the artist, but that they should be
found worth looking at by all sorts of people, it
would seem that truth of action and expression
is the first quality to be sought in a picture.
It must be so arranged that this is evident, for
it is on this that the picture makes its appeal.
Millet said, " I wish first of all to make my

58 Lectures on Painting

figures express the actions they are engaged in :
people and things should always be there with
an object."

Leonardo dwells on this very strongly, and is
never tired of urging the artist to observe. He
says, " When you are instructed in perspective
and know how to draw the forms of bodies, it
should be your delight to observe and consider
the different actions of men, when they are
talking and quarrelling ; when they laugh and
when they fight. Be quick in sketching these
with slight strokes in your pocketbook, which
should always be about you. When it is full
take another, for these are not things to be
rubbed out, but kept with the greatest care ;
because forms and motions of bodies are so
infinitely various, that the memory is not able
to retain them. Therefore preserve these
sketches as your assistants and masters." He
goes on, " The painter must observe on the
spot, take sketches, and not wait till he wants
such expression, and then have it counterfeited
for him ; for instance, getting a model to weep
when there is no cause : an expression without

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59

a cause will be neither quick nor natural. And
a figure which does not express by its position
the sentiments and passions by which we suppose
it animated, will appear to indicate that its
muscles are not obedient to its will, and the
painter very deficient in judgment." One more
quotation, which is a kind of summing up :
" The painter ought always to form in his mind
a kind of system of reasoning, or discussion
within himself, on any remarkable object before
him. He should stop, take notes, and form
some rule upon it, considering the place, the
circumstances, the lights and shadows."

Well, this is all only excellent common sense.
If a man sets out to paint a picture, he can't
even make a good commencement unless he has
some fund of collected observations to start
from. We know that the great painters worked
in this way, and it is well worth while for us
to study their drawings and preparatory work ;
we can learn as much from them as from their
pictures, perhaps even more, because one can
see the steps that were taken. And in some
cases, as in the studies of Raphael, one can see

6o Lectures on Painting

the various actions which were tried for his
figures, before the final and most expressive one
was reached. For it is helpful for us to see that
works which seem to be perfect, and to have
come together naturally and without effort,
were worried over and altered, just as we do
with our own works. It makes us feel that we
are a little nearer to the great men when we know
that they also had their difficulties. And then,
these drawings are in themselves so well worthy
of study. I may give, by way of illustration,
four drawings, all dealing with the same subject,
the Adoration of the Shepherds ; one is by
Tintoret, one by Marcola Veronese, one by
Bassano, and one by Abraham Bloemart ; and
it is very interesting to notice the different
ways in which the subject is arranged. Two of
them are arranged as upright panels ; and
Tintoret's drawing shows the stable arranged in
two storeys, with the Holy Family above, and
a fine group of shepherds below, beautifully
arranged against an open central mass of light
outside. This suggestion of the grouping must,
I think, have been derived from some actual

Giavihattista Marcola Vero7iese In the antlwrs possession

STUDY FOR COMPOSITION
(pen and wash drawing)

Invention

6i

place which he had seen ; and one point of the
design is that the greatest prominence is given
to the figures of the shepherds.

In the sketch by Veronese there is an ingenious
arrangement of a flight of steps leading through
an archway. The group of the Holy Family
is posed on the steps, and so is raised up, but the
figure of Joseph, and an ox at the back, are in
the shadow of the arch, making a dark framework
which allows the light to be focussed on the
Virgin and Child. This effect of shadow
from the arch is one which must have been
observed in nature, and it is utilised very cleverly.
It is evident, I think, that the need of filling an
upright panel has determined the composition
in both these cases. In the design by Bassano,
which is, I think, the finest expression of the
subject, it is interesting to note that the Child
is made literally the centre of interest, by the
figures on either side bending towards Him ;
the lines of the stooping backs all form parts
of circles, of which the Child is the centre : and
we may note that this design depends on line
and movement, rather than on lighting.

62 Lectures on Painting

These sketches are done with remarkable
clearness and freedom, showing that at the
earliest stage the artist had a definite idea in
his mind ; and they are natural in action and
gesture. The Italian is more demonstrative
than the northern races, and his actions are
naturally more expressive ; and it may be worth
while, by way of emphasising the fact that we
render best those things with which we are
familiar, to compare with these another drawing
of the same subject by a Fleming, Abraham
Bloemart, who gave to his figures poses and
*' graces " which he borrowed from Raphael
and Michelangelo. His design is able and well
arranged, but every one of its figures is exagger-
ated, and affected in pose : one sees at once
that it is all mannerism ; indeed, the whole
design seems to be arranged for the sake of the
poses. How poor this kind of work is, compared
either with the Italians who are imitated, or
with the Dutch painters who were true to their
native inspiration ! For when we look at Rem-
brandt's fine picture of the same subject, in the
National Gallery, we are struck by its truth to

Invention

63

nature. In this there are no fine poses, but the
subject is felt ; "an artist must be moved
himself, if he is to move others," as Millet said.

When we are concerned with landscape, or
with figures associated with landscape, invention
is, I think, a much simpler affair than when one
is designing a subject, because one does as a rule
see one's subject first in nature ; the thing is
before our eyes, and it is because we find a
particular effect beautiful that we want to paint
it ; so that we have rather to select than to
invent. We must be quick to notice what it is
that impresses us ; what are the elements of the
picture : we must make up our minds about
the quantity and position of the lights and darks ;
make a note of them, and, as far as possible,
keep to it. Some of the finest drawings of
Claude and of Rembrandt show this simple and
beautiful noting of effect ; the drawing illus-
trated is of a most commonplace scene, made
beautiful by the arrangement of the sunlight
and shadow over it : by the placing of the lights
and darks.

It seems to me that the principal thing a

64 Lectures on Painting

picture depends on, for its general truth at any
rate, is knowledge of the effect of light and shade,
in enhancing or modifying colour ; and I doubt
if it is possible to get this except by studying
the full range of light and colour, as we find
it in outdoor nature : taking the landscape
painter's point of view, that light is the governing
thing. In looking back to the early work, we
see that the possibility of rendering the beauty
of natural effect was only recognised gradually,
and that at first all figures had the same relief
and the same prominence ; then perspective
was discovered, and little by little we can trace
the steps : Masaccio, Leonardo, Raphael, each
gaining something, until we come to the great
central figures, Titian, Rembrandt, and Velasquez,
whose knowledge of light and colour sums up,
it would seem, all that can be known. The
development of painting has been a gradual
progress towards the knowledge of light, and
how things are revealed by it ; and it is not too
much to say that every great figure painter has
been a landscape painter also, or at any rate
has studied landscape. One may instance, since

Invention 6 5

the time of Titian and Giorgione, who were the
fathers of landscape painting, Rubens, Velasquez,
Rembrandt, Vermeer of Delft, Vandyke, Gains-
borough, Reynolds, and in our own time Sir
John Millais, Whistler, and Watts.

This necessary knowledge of the effects of
light cannot be gained if we confine ourselves,
in studying landscape, to the minute observa-
tion we employ when painting things in detail,
for we can't sit down to it ; we must culti-
vate the habit of making quick comparisons,
and of estimating the relative force with which
things are presented to us ; looking at figures
and groups, sky, houses and trees all at once,
and with a kind of governing observation over
the whole field of sight, noting and remarking
light and shade, colour and gradation. The
method may be as summary as we please, the
roughest notes with the colours and gradations
written down and numbered ; any method, so
that something remains in the mind. Then we
can begin to get our observations into some sort
of system, and build up a little reserve of know-
ledge, which we can confirm and establish by
5

66 Lectures on Painting

our study of pictures. It is only developing
a faculty we already possess ; for, as you know,
we can all criticise a painting to some extent,
and pronounce on its degree of truth : through
the recollections of nature which are latent in
our minds, but are not cultivated sufficiently
to enable us consciously to use them for our-
selves, constructively, as Turner and other
great artists did.

This building up of a picture by its effect is,
as it were, the material part of the painter's
problem, and the direction of study can be
indicated ; but the governing design and action
must first have been imagined, and for a picture
it must be imagined in light and shade. For
a design that is fine in line and arrangement
only, may be contradicted or neutralised by the
arrangement of its colour ; or, on the other hand,
a picture which is effective as a colour scheme
may be poor when reduced to its elements of
line. One cannot, I think, give any directions
for design ; things may be pointed out, as that
absolute symmetry or repetition in figures is
not pleasing (this is probably because the mind

Invention

67

recognises that no two people think or act alike),
or that equal spaces are not pleasant to the eye,
or that a principal object should not be exactly
in the centre, and so on : but one learns these
things from the study of pictures. One method,
for instance, of calling attention to the central
point of a picture, may be seen in the drawing
of Bassano's, where lines, like parts of concentric
circles, surround the central point ; another
method is by lines converging to the centre of
interest, as may be seen in the sketch by Tintoret,
and in Mr. Watts's picture of " Cain " in the
Diploma Gallery, where the arms of the angels
all point down to the figure of Cain. And one
may frequently trace these two sets of lines
combined, in a picture ; so that it is — roughly
speaking — like a spider's web, as in Claude's
picture of the embarkation of the Queen of
Sheba. But these things are, it seems to me,
done instinctively, rather than consciously ;
and no rules can be given for designing figures,
for the picture must arise in the artist's mind,
and is dependent on his temperament, on what
has moved or interested him. We may point

68 Lectures on Painting

out that such a work was composed on the
principle of the pyramid, another on that of the
circle, and so on ; but, as Reynolds says, " Rules
are made from pictures, not pictures from
rules. . . . They should be subject to us, and not
we to them." And if the painter knows, or can
imagine, the true action of his figures, as Raphael,
or Rembrandt, or Millet did; if he can see his
picture in his mind, and enter into the emotion
and spirit of it, the lines will come right of them-
selves, or they will be on the way to. One may
go through the splendid series of pictures painted
by Mr. Watts, but no rules can furnish us with
the secret of their fine composition ; there is
no limit to the variety of his inventions, and
yet they are all his : one can only say that this
was how he imagined such an idea, that he felt
it should be expressed in such a way. One
can say no more of Michelangelo, of Rembrandt,
or of Raphael.

We should study Raphael more than, I am
afraid, we do, for his invention and grouping ;
he was, I think, greater than any other, except
Rembrandt, in these things : not, of course,

Invention

69

that we should copy his gestures or groups,
but we should study them. He had an un-
equalled power of realising his subject in its
essentials, and expressing the action of each
individual figure in it, in itself and in its relation
to the other figures of his group. And his
action is always natural, and, because natural,
beautiful. It is difficult, out of the immense
mass of his works, to choose any one, but one of
his familiar works, the cartoon of *' Christ's
Charge to Peter," may serve for an example.
The idea of his composition is probably derived,
to some extent, from Masaccio's fresco of " Christ
commanding Peter to take the money from the
mouth of the fish." The proportion of the
figures to the background is the same, the heads
are all on a level, and the feet at irregular levels,
as the spectator would see them, standing ;
and there is in each a landscape background
with hills. The Apostles are grouped around
the figure of Christ, but the grouping in Masaccio's
picture is casual ; most of the figures seem there
by chance, and not to be related to the incident.
The incident itself is not clearly told, nor are

70 Lectures on Painting

the principal figures given prominence : but
the drawing of the figures is fine.

Now, if we turn to Raphael's work, we see the
great advance he made. The same natural and
true point of view is taken, and there is the
same relation of figures to landscape ; but the
main incident is given prominence by detaching
the two principal figures. Then the Apostles,
instead of standing about vaguely, are shown
to be interested in the incident ; there is
variety of expression and variety of gesture
throughout the group. This gesture is pro-
gressive, and from the quiet figures at the end,
is gradually intensified, until it reaches the
central incident of the picture ; so that in this
group we have, first a little group, then figures
detaching, and finally the figure of Peter : the
figure of Christ stands alone. Now all this
gives a fine effect, but why was it done ? It is
hardly a sufiicient answer to say that it " comes
better " that way than in Masaccio's. Was it
not done because Raphael realised that this
variety of action was true to human nature ?
We all know that although a group of people do

Invention

71

keep together as a whole, the more active and
the more eager ones come away from the others ;
and so, not only has Raphael given to each
figure his natural and appropriate gesture, but
he has given the group as a whole the behaviour
of a group ; so that the group becomes typical.
A composition has been found which is natural
and inevitable ; it is done once for all, and
cannot be done better.

The truth sought in his inventions was, as in
his figures, a general truth ; to the type, rather
than to the individual ; such a picture, for
instance, as that of " Michael overthrowing
Satan" settles for ever the arrangement of that
subject. It is told of the late M. Fantin, the
French painter, that he was when a young man
going through the Louvre with Millet, who drew
his attention to this picture ; but Fantin did
not hke it, and gave his reasons. " Yes," said
Millet, " but look, what a terrible fall ! " And
when we think of the great mass of his work,
and that one man, in a short lifetime, advanced
the boundaries of his art in so many directions,
to a point which has not been surpassed, we

/

72 Lectures on Painting

cannot wonder at succeeding artists trying to
follow him ; and least of all at their failure :
for how can one continue a perfection already
attained ?

It is worth while considering in this connec-
tion, in the light of the more complete historical
knowledge of painting which we now possess,
whether Reynolds's advice on generalisation
has proved to be altogether sound. He says
truly that " the mind is distracted in a variety
of accidents, for so they ought to be called,
rather than forms, and the disagreement of these
among themselves will be a perpetual source of
confusion and meanness until, by generalising his
ideas, the painter has acquired the only true
criterion of judgment." This is quite true ; but
then he goes on to say, "It is better that he
should come to diversify on particulars from
the large and broad idea of things, than vainly
attempt to ascend from particulars to the great
general idea : for to generalise from the endless
and vicious variety of actual forms is perhaps
more than any one mind can accomplish : but
when the other and, I think, better course is

Invention

73

pursued, the artist may avail himself of the
united powers of his predecessors. He sets out
with an ample inheritance, and avails himself
of the selection of ages."

Well, we all do this in a sense, but I think
history shows that those who set out in that
way, trying to avail themselves of the selection
of ages, have set out with a larger burden than
they could carry. The scientific student can, I
suppose, and does, avail himself of the united
powers of his predecessors ; they are fully at
his command : but every artist has to begin his
climb at the bottom of the tree, and get up as
far as he can. The powers of his predecessors
are not at his command until he proves himself
equal with them. The history of art gives us a
distinct warning in this respect, in the sterility
which has always attended the deUberate adop-
tion of the grand, or any other style. What we
rightly learn from the masters is to do as they
did ; to study nature. In this spirit they can
help us ; and I think we should try and allow
ourselves to be influenced by nature, somewhat
in the spirit of Constable, who said, " When I

74 Lectures on Painting

am before nature, I try to forget that I have
ever seen a picture." Of course we cannot
forget the good things we have seen ; but what
is meant, I think, is that we should feel, when
before nature, that all pictures give but echoes
of its power and beauty.

The greatest service the old painters can do
is to steady our judgment ; for we are peculiarly
liable to be led away by following whatever
fad happens to be in vogue at the moment.
This may be a consequence of exhibitions,
which lead men to emulation in those qualities
most appreciated by painters ; and so far as this
leads artists to make their work as perfect as
they can, it is commendable : but it leads also
to the cultivation of virtuosity for its own sake,
and as an end, which is surely a mistake. For
painting is a means of expression, not in itself
an end. I know that the plea of " art for art's
sake " is made in justification, and that it is
truly said that painting should not attempt to
express things which can be better expressed in
literature ; but the object of a painter need not
necessarily be a story. The expression of

Invention

75

character, or the beauty and significance of
movement, or the effects of light and atmo-
sphere, and the emotions they raise ; any of the
endless ways in which the beauty in nature
may be expressed may surely be taken as the
artist's aim. If " art for art's sake " mean for
truth's sake, or for beauty's sake ; to express
nature as well, and with as good workmanship
as one can, one cannot have a better motto :
but if it mean that the object of painting is
simply to get, or display, fine technical qualities,
then I think it is altogether the wrong way
about, like putting the cart before the horse.
Mr. Whistler did not paint his nocturnes for the
sake of getting a beautiful quality of blue paint,
but to express, as he once told me, the beauty
and mystery of the night ; and all work that
lives does so because it interprets or reveals
some beauty in nature. The French painter
Gerome once told a pupil that " painting for the
sake of painting was like speaking for the sake
of talking : to paint well," said he, *' one must
have something to say."
The danger of virtuosity is its tendency to

76 Lectures on Painting

degenerate into cleverness and triviality, but
nature does not impress us as being trivial ;
and as the larger part of a student's training
is necessarily imitative work, it is, I fear, too
often taken for granted that this, which is,
after all, a kind of still-life painting, is the
beginning and end of the whole matter. This
is apparent, it seems to me, in all exhibitions,
and it is at the root of the great difference
between modern work and the old ; whose aim
was rather to represent than to imitate nature.
The best of modern work, it is true, joins on
harmoniously with the best of the old ; the
great French school of the middle of last century
takes its place naturally with the great schools
of the past, and the artists who made it were
occupied with expression, with the spirit and
not the letter of their art ; with the simple and
direct appeal to the natural feeling and emotion,
rather than with details which, however inter-
esting they may be as matters of technique, are
of less consequence. It seems to me that this
point can be seen very clearly if we compare
Denner with Rembrandt or Reynolds. Denner's

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77

work is most wonderful as imitative workman-
ship. Everything in it is painted as minutely
as possible, and at close quarters, but the effect
of the picture as a whole is weak ; because its
elements, instead of being adjusted to each
other, with each detail presented in its proper
degree, as portions of a harmonious whole, are
disintegrated, so that, although we have every
item, we have not the picture ; for our attention
is so compelled to every item, to every detail,
as to give us almost a feeling of intrusion.
There is certainly a triumph of imitation, but
of how little account it all is, when compared
with the easy and natural representation of
Rembrandt or Reynolds, which we recognise at
once as true. One could not avoid a similar
comparison between the portraits of Sandys
and of Watts in a recent exhibition. Watts's
portraits are composed, one element in its
relation to another ; and this is the true view of
nature, which imitative painting, for all its skill,
misses : for a general impression of truth is not
produced by adding together all the little truths,
but by generalising.

78 Lectures on Painting

The artist must have an idea in his mind
which he wishes to convey ; he must depend on
facts, but he must control them according to
his intention. Rousseau has some remarks on
composition which are of interest. He says, " I
understand by composition that which is in us,
entering as much as possible into the exterior
reality of things. If it were not so, the mason
with his rule could very quickly compose a
picture representing the sea. It would be
enough to draw a line at any height across his
canvas. Now, what composes the sea, if it is
not the soul of the artist ? There is composition
when the objects represented are not there for
themselves, but for the sake of including under
natural appearances the echoes which they have
in our souls."

IV
TASTE

IV

TASTE

PICTURE begins its life when it leaves

jljL the painter's hand. He has made some-
thing that, with reasonable care, will last
for centuries ; in the hope that it will give
pleasure, that someone will possess and cherish
it, and will always like to look on it. He has
expressed whatever insight into nature has been
given him ; he has made his work conform to
his standard of taste. And it goes out into the
world to live or die, to have people continually
finding pleasure in it, recognising its beauty,
and being led through it to a greater appreci-
ation of nature's beauty ; or else tiring of it,
like a child with a toy. Or it may come back
to him, and he may turn it to the wall, and never
wish to look at it again. But we must remember
that a picture cannot take its place definitely

6

82 Lectures on Painting

in a few years ; if contemporary judgment is
in the main right, there are, as we all know,
many instances where it has been mistaken.
The immediate success or failure of a work
need not count as an indication of its merit, for
it is only when a picture has attained a respect-
able age — say from ten to twenty years — that
its place, whatever it may be, is assured.

So, to arrive at a standard of taste, we must go
back to the older painters ; and as there are
many schools and many methods, there can be
no one fixed standard for all, though all are
alike, in that they must refer for their merit
to the degree of truth with which they interpret
some aspect of nature in paint.

But there are things which, however well and
truly painted, do not attract. A work may be
very well painted, but its subject may be re-
pulsive, and this we agree to call bad taste ;
or its subject may be unexceptionable, and yet
it may be painted in a tasteless way : and so
our taste is shown, not only in what we paint,
but in the way we paint it.

It seems to me that taste in a picture is some-

Taste

83

thing like natural good manners in man : not
depending on the elements — the clothes — of the
picture, but on the temperament it displays,
and the measure of its harmony with our acknow-
ledged standards ; for a man's picture reveals
his outlook on the world, and is in that sense
a part of him. If we choose a person for a friend,
we like him, let us say, to be simple and natural,
reliable and without swagger. Whether he is
rich or poor, grave or gay, does not matter so
long as we can depend on him. And it seems
to me that a picture, to be in good taste, must
have analogous qualities — that it should, like
our ideal friend, be in accord with the best
standards ; it should be in harmony with the
best we know.

But we should not assume that the particular
direction in which we are led is the only direction,
the one that everyone else should follow ; for
the differences of the various schools show us
that there is not one fixed, undeviating standard,
though some standards are higher than others :
but that each quality in a picture has its own
standard, and that these are all equally founded

84 Lectures on Painting

on some truth to, or agreement with, nature.
And we recognise some works as the greatest,
because in them we see that their quaUties are,
as it were, adjusted in the same proportionate
balance as in nature.

By recognising that each response to nature
has its own standard, we may get to know our
own Hmitations, and so get on to a working
basis ; each of us trying to make his work more
perfect in its own way. For it is absurd to
suppose that we should all try for the same
ideals ; as much so as to expect conformity
in opinion on other matters.

The works of Phidias, of Michelangelo, of
Raphael and of Velasquez, of Titian and of
Rembrandt, take by common agreement the
highest places ; they are our standards. But
there is a harmony in all the best work — an
accord with the possibilities of nature. We
agree that people in a picture should live, that
their form should be well expressed, that they
should be natural in their actions, and in their
proper environment ; that the influences of
the light and air, and the colour in accordance

Taste

85

with this, should also be properly expressed.
And on these simple and reasonable conditions
it seems to me that we may take Raphael,
Velasquez, Titian and Rembrandt, Claude and
Constable, each in a particular quality, as giving
a standard. Both Phidias and Michelangelo
are so great, so unapproachable, we cannot
measure ourselves against them in any way :
they are above comparison. But, leaving them
aside, one cannot presume to make comparisons
between giants, each greatest in his own way.
Raphael had, it seems to me, the greatest genius
as an inventor ; in this respect he had no limits.
Consider the naturalness and variety of his
groupings, and how his figures are all related to
each other. The things he wishes to bring into
prominence are there, just as they should be :
his invention is so natural, that we recognise
it no more in his pictures than we do in a grouping
of actual people. We take his observation as
a matter of course ; but when we try, ourselves,
to put even two or three figures together, we
find how difficult it is, and how poorly our
minds are furnished. And then what a mag-

86 Lectures on Painting

nificent artist he was, how great the skill with
which he carried through his long series of
works ; it would seem that our difficulties of
drawing, expression, and command of colour
did not exist for him : and since his time, nearly
four hundred years ago, we cannot refer to any
work of the kind worthy to be named with his.

But Raphael's work, though it is true to himian
nature, refers for the most part to conditions
that are past, as do the Greek statues ; like them,
it is removed from us by racial and social con-
ditions as well as by time. Yet, like the art of
the Greeks, it is living, and should be studied in
the same spirit as we study the Greek work.

We cannot revive a style which arose naturally
from conditions that are past : but Mr. Watts's
career shows that the most modern mind, when
in sympathy with the finest work, can re-create
its spirit, and he is an ideal example of the use
which the old art can be to us, as a guiding
influence.

If we take Raphael's work as a standard for
composition and for ideal generalisation, we
must take that of Velasquez as the standard for

Taste

87

painting actual things. It does not seem possible
to surpass his work in its dispassionate and
inclusive truth. In such a work as the later
portrait of Philip, everything is given as truly as
in life, and the only reference seems to be directly
to nature, and not to other painters; and one
may imagine that Velasquez really did, "when
before nature, forget that he had ever seen a
picture " ; as Constable says he tried to do.
Is it altogether owing to the difference between
the Italian and Spanish temperament — or is it
not rather because of their finer and more subtle
art — that the pictures of Velasquez are nearer to
us? They are more "modern" than those of
Raphael (comparing the portraits of each),
and while the resemblance to nature is so great,
the art is so concealed, that it hardly occurs
to us there can be any art in it. What a fine
judgment was that of Reynolds on Velasquez ;
" What we are all trying to do with great labour,
he does at once."

We do not feel like this before Titian, or before
Rembrandt : we feel the beauty of the picture,
but the art is evident, and the point of view has

88 Lectures on Painting

to be felt, and accepted. It is a parti-pris ; an
element of expression in nature, developed and
dwelt on to the utmost, and in the case of both
artists, perhaps, appealing more to the emotion
than to the reason. In Titian's work we are
moved by the harmony of colour in light, and
in that of Rembrandt by the mystery of light
and shadow. Titian gives us a standard for
colour, and all that it may be made to convey
or suggest to us, and Rembrandt gives the
expressive significance of light and shadow.
We may take these four painters, Raphael,
Velasquez, Titian, and Rembrandt, as each giving
a standard of truth.

Now, what is taste ? Reynolds says, " We
apply the term taste to that act of the mind by
which we like, or dislike, whatever be the subject.
Our judgment upon an airy nothing, a fancy
which has no foundation, is called by the same
name which we give to our determination con-
cerning those truths which refer to the general
and most unalterable principles of human nature :
to the works which are only produced by the
greatest efforts of the understanding," and he

Taste

89

goes on to say that " the natural appetite or
taste of the human mind is for Truth." If this
is sound sense, and I think we must agree that
it is, then taste must be dependent on some
standard of truth.

But it does not follow, as we know, that the
true representation of everything and anything
is in good taste. Things which are horrible or
repugnant to our feelings cannot be. They go
against our nature, and the significance of a
picture should not lie in anything which is
repugnant to our senses. It may be said, "Such
things exist, and why not paint them ? " And,
as we know, some painters are particularly fond
of horrors — decapitations, hospital scenes, etc.
— and they paint them well and truthfully. I
don't mean to say that we should only paint
what are called " pleasing " pictures ; but still
one may take the idea of truth, in connection
with taste, to imply not only true representation,
but that the thing represented should be in
accord with the general instincts of human
nature ; so that things tending to cruelty would
be, in that sense, untrue to nature. The work

90 Lectures on Painting

of Rembrandt raises this question ; the interest
and charm of his Hghting is so great, that it
governs the objects he paints : but with all
the magic of his colouring, his pictures are
sometimes repellent. His picture of the
" Butcher's Shop," for instance, is wonderfully
painted, with magnificent warm whites, and
reds, and browns — a most perfect study ; but
in spite of the great beauty of its paint, can it
be said to be in good taste ? As painting it is
splendid, but in a thing that is always to be
looked at, there should be surely some selection
of the elements that give pleasure, and not pain.
Rembrandt seems never to have felt this ; his
keen interest and frank acceptance of everything
led him at times to paint things which must
make us feel that a thing may be true to life,
and yet not be in good taste : and while he
convinces us that truth of expression is of greater
moment in a work than personal beauty or fine
proportion, he does not convince us that any
matter is equally acceptable ; though he holds
our admiration always by the beauty of his
vision, even while we dislike his choice. And

Taste

91

Teniers, Steen, and Brouwer, in their tavern
scenes, touch us in the same way, though not
so strongly ; for they are not so terribly in
earnest as Rembrandt : there is a touch of
comedy in their work, and the human side is
interesting. If we could imagine ourselves going
with Brouwer into one of the squalid taverns he
paints, we should no doubt want to get out
again quickly. But Brouwer would say, " Oh,
don't mind those fellows ; they're just enjoying
themselves in their own way ; they're always
like that. But look how beautifully the light
shines on them — look at that red coat against
the rich shadow — at those men quarrelling!"
And so, as we see in the pictures of these painters,
a second interest is created or aroused, depending
on the greater things — on simphcity of action,
on lighting, colour, or atmosphere — and it is
this which charms us ; and for the sake of the
fine rendering of these qualities, we forgive
or tolerate, or even like, the mean subjects of
their choice. It is the truth or beauty of the
lighting and colour, the painter's qualities,
which keep such things on the right side of the

92 Lectures on Painting

boundary. The same subjects, painted in-
artistically, without taste, would have no right
to exist.

There could be no greater contrast than
between the pictures of Steen and Brouwer
and those of Watteau. In the one case almost
every element in the scene is mean and poor
and ugly in itself ; in the other, every beautiful
thing has been carefully chosen and combined.
Beautiful women, young men and children in
fine dresses ; trees, fountains, statues, the sug-
gestion of music — everything that can please is
there : so that in thinking of taste in painting,
one instinctively thinks of Watteau. Every
jarring note is carefully kept out. Yet the
effect of the picture, its charm to the painter,
does not, it seems to me, depend on all
these beautiful things, but rather, as in the
work of the vulgar Dutchman, on the way he
has lighted and treated them. The jewel-like
quality of his colour is expressed through his
realisation of shadow in relation to it, and the
beauty of his pictures depends largely on this,
and on the way they are put together. For if

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93

we compare his work with that of his imitators
and followers, although they used the same
properties and materials — we see the same
elements in their pictures, the same dresses and
backgrounds — how poor and artificial they are
after Watteau. So that harmony of colour and
true lighting, as an element of truth to nature,
is an element of taste.

But it may be said, surely the effect is forced
in Watteau ; one does not, in daylight or sun-
light, see these strong darks ? Yes, this is true,
but it is impossible to get strong colour to tell,
as a light, unless it is contrasted with, or sup-
ported by, dark colour, as the Venetians did ;
and if by darkening the shadows, the painter
can get the effect of the sparkling lights, he is
justified in sacrificing the truth of the general
colour for the sake of giving, by a particular
relation of the parts to the whole, a concentra-
tion on certain things. For by this concentra-
tion our mind is directed to the principal things,
as it would be by our own interest in them, if
we were looking at the scene. Watteau does
what he wants to do. He makes us share his

94 Lectures on Painting

interest or enjoyment in certain things. Yet
if we were painting figures under trees in sun-
light, we ought not deHberately to imitate this
convention ; we ought, I feel sure, always to
approach nature frankly : but if we wanted to
concentrate on a particular passage as Watteau
did, we should have to do so by a similar means.

I have tried to express by these comparisons
that taste is not quite the same thing as fashion
in art ; that it depends on the principles on
which a work is done, being in accord with a
right understanding of nature, much more than
on the properties the painter uses to compose
his pictures ; although these may be great and
valuable elements of interest in it. The im-
portant thing is the use the painter makes of
them ; how far he can bring his means of expres-
sion into accord with his perceptions of beauty.

We all have some ideal towards which we
work, and it is well not to be too easily satisfied
with ourselves. We should make a point of
comparing our work, not only with that of our
contemporaries, but with what we know to be
the best. It is so easy now to get photographs

Taste

95

of first-rate pictures ; and we should get some of
our favourites, or a good copy of something we
like, and put them up in our rooms with some-
thing of our own beside them that we are rather
proud of, and see which we get tired of first,
and find out why. We should not only enjoy
looking at a good thing, but dig into it ; try and
take it to pieces, and see how it is made. And I
think we shall generally find that it is a matter
of selection or suppression that makes the fine
picture better than our own ; in our desire to
give everything we equalise the interest. It is a
good thing, too, to take up something of one's
own work that has been done long enough to
be forgotten, which we can criticise as dis-
passionately as if it were by someone else, and
search out its faults, with one's ideal in one's
mind.

But we cannot work without coming under
the influence of the " taste of the time " — we are
in the current, and part of it. And this taste
varies from year to year, is governed by no
standard, and affects us unconsciously; so that
we sometimes are shocked on finding an old

g6 Lectures on Painting

work of our own to be full of affectations, of
which we were quite unconscious while painting
it : and it is, I think, a good thing if we are.
Only the very strongest men are unaffected by
this influence ; and they, while they are doing
work that will set the taste or fashion to a later
generation, are sometimes out of the taste of
their own time. No doubt Hogarth was con-
sidered to be in bad taste by the formal painters
of his time, and Chardin must have been quite
out of the current of his day. We know, too,
that Millet's work was for a long time thought
to be in bad taste, and that Corot was (I think)
over fifty years of age before he sold a picture ;
yet these men are all accepted now, and one
wonders that any difficulty should ever have
been made in accepting them. This is not so
much due, I think, to dislike of novelty in itself,
as to a kind of resentment felt at work which
implies that the current ideals may be wrong.
Painting has a way of getting into ruts or grooves,
and we don't like being asked to reconsider our
ideas. Sir George Beaumont, a very conven-
tional landscape painter, who asked Constable,

Taste

97

" Where do you put your brown tree ? " was
no doubt shocked when Constable told him
that he painted trees green.

The public taste must rest on the standards
maintained by painters ; it cannot form a
standard. Indeed, it is questionable whether, in
a broad sense, there is such a thing as public
taste. There are a comparatively small number
of people, not painters, who really understand
and love fine painting ; a large number with
every wish to, who are very willing to learn ;
and beyond that, I fancy, the great majority of
people don't trouble themselves one way or the
other. They have other things to do and think
of, and the questions which agitate artists are
of absolutely no interest to them.

The conditions under which we work, too, are
very different from those prevailing in early
times, when the painter was as necessary as the
carpenter or shoemaker. A picture would be
ordered for some purpose — for a house or a
church — and the painter would do his work as
well as he could and send it home, and there
would be an end of it. And later on, when
7

98 Lectures on Painting

pictures became articles of commerce, the painter
worked for the merchant and for the private
patron, as he does now. But the painters had,
and maintained, their standards of good work.
This was before the days of large exhibitions,
though exhibitions are, in a sense, as old as the
hills ; for Apelles used to exhibit his works
to the public, and, as we know, Velasquez, when
he went to Rome to paint the Pope, first painted
the portrait of his servant, Juan de Pareja, to get
his hand in. "And when this was taken, with
other good paintings, to adorn the cloisters of
the Pantheon on the feast of St. Joseph, as was
at that time customary, it met with such uni-
versal approbation that, on the unanimous
opinion of the painters of various nationalities,
all else seemed painting, this alone truth "
(Justi). So that things were then much as now,
and the artist depended on exhibition (though
not so much as he does now) for recognition
by his fellows.

But every virtue has its attendant vice ;
and the development of our large exhibitions,
in which pictures bid not only for artistic,

Taste

99

but also for public approval, has brought about
a change. There being so powerful an induce-
ment to a painter to please or attract attention,
pictures are painted for the purpose ; and as he
who shouts loudest is best heard in a crowd,
the element of sensationalism comes in, so
that, as we sometimes see, pictures — even of
horrors — are painted, with apparently no other
object or purpose than to draw a crowd. And
we may often hear it said of a picture, that it
makes a good exhibition picture, but one would
not like to live with it ; or that a work is very
popular, though it is not well painted.

Another result of exhibitions is that the
painter is tempted to attract attention by forcing
the picture into prominence by means of strong
colour or violent contrasts, so that one may see
pictures with pure white at one end of the scale
and pure black at the other, playing on every
colour of the palette at once ; out of all truth
to the modesty and harmony of nature, and so
out of taste : and this is called " painting up to
exhibition pitch." I am sure we can all recall
feeling, in exhibitions, the restfulness and

loo Lectures on Painting

naturalness of a fine harmonious picture, such
as one by Watts or Whistler, among others which
are forced out of harmony for the sake of, as it
is called, " telling strongly.'* We should always
remember that harmony is the true strength
of a picture.

Now it seems to me that this aim — to force
a picture into prominence — is beside the mark
for an artist. Those of us who are engaged in
painting know how subtle an art it is, and how
much there is to be learnt ; and we find that
it is only as we get on in life that we are able
even to understand the beauties of the greatest
works ; but those who don't study painting^
don't understand these qualities at all. It is
difficult to go beyond generalities, but I will
try and make a little point clear. Painters
know that the great difficulty of their art lies
in getting a picture together, rather than in the
actual painting even of its principal parts ;
and one of the greatest beauties in fine work —
we may take the portaits of Vandyke, Gains-
borough, or Reynolds as instances — is the way
the background is used to " make the picture " ;

Taste

lOI

light being placed in one place and dark in another
so beautifully, that it all seems natural and
without artifice. But painters only find out
these things after much time and study ; and
those who know nothing of painting will probably
not even see the background, or recognise the
means by which, say, a number of figures are
grouped together, or an effect of atmosphere
rendered in landscape. It is indeed doubtful
if people who have never given a thought to
these matters are conscious, in actual life, that
figures are relieved against backgrounds ; or
even that there is light and shadow on faces
or other objects : they have never considered
the appearances of things, or their relations
one to another. But they will of course know
all about facts, how a person is dressed, etc.,
and they prefer pictures which give these things
as definitely as possible. And if the painter
should be led by the comparative ease with
which such an acceptable standard of work can
be reached, to rest content with it, it is a pity.
For we have good standards set for us, and
should respect them and try to maintain them.

102 Lectures on Painting

so that in time good painting should be better
understood. We have only ourselves to blame,
and should not blame the public taste, if in our
desire to attract attention we depart from what
we know to be good standards.

It is often said, and always felt by painters,
that we haven't the same chance nowadays as
the old men had ; our civilisation makes things
so much uglier, we can't take things as they are.
There is some truth in this, but I don't think
we need worry too much about it, since people
have always looked back to the past and thought
their own times prosaic and inartistic. Reynolds
considered that the dress of his time was un-
suitable for representations either in painting or
sculpture " for the sake of dignity," " because
the familiarity of modern dress is alone sufficient
to destroy all dignity." But yet he painted
Nelly O'Brien, and is said to have pro-
nounced Velasquez's portrait of the Pope
the finest picture in Rome ! We now find the
dresses of his period delightfully picturesque,
and we no longer have the same ideas of the
beauty of a " dignity " borrowed from the

Taste

Greeks and Romans, which prevailed in his
time ; an idea that they were always, as it were,
measuring their proportions or adjusting their
togas. We know now that the ancient art was
not only devoted to gods and goddesses, but
that it was also very human and playful. Study
it and you will see this. Some of the paintings
from Herculaneum and Pompei are as fresh and
spirited as the work of Delacroix or Rubens.

We should make the best of our times ; though
it is, I fear, undeniable that our complex civilisa-
tion does not make for beauty, and does not give
us such opportunities for its expression as do
simpler social conditions. Painters, as we know,
have always shown a preference for painting
simple people, because their actions and gestures
are natural and expressive. And though the
city man who goes to his office in the morning by
the "tube" is quite as worthy a person as the
average ploughman — probably more so — yet a
picture of the ploughman going to his work
pleases us, and we recognise that there is a
beauty in it ; while one of the city man going
to his office would strike us as commonplace,

I04 Lectures on Painting

tasteless, unnecessary, and depressing. This is
doubtless because the mind naturally refers to
the beauty of the great elementary things — the
sky, the sunshine, and the hills, rivers, fields,
and trees ; and in people to those things which
suggest beauty, activity, and health. We all
have a longing for the perfect things.

After all, light seems to me the governing
thing, as far as the painter is concerned ; it
redeems anything that is capable of redemption.
There is a story told of Reynolds, that when
someone came to sit to him in a very ugly hat,
" Never mind," said he, " there's light and shade
on it " ; and, after all, if it is in us to do good
work, a masterpiece is as possible now as ever
it was.

But there will always be some men who, like
Mr. Watts, seek to express and bring home to
us perfections beyond those which their im-
mediate surroundings afford. Mr. Watts accepted
what was beautiful in his own time, but it was
not enough to satisfy him ; and we may fitly take
him as being an instance of Reynolds's saying,
that the natural taste or appetite of man is for

Taste

105

truth : for his works refer, and he refers us, back
to the great elementary truths. I think all
painters must feel this, especially in his fine
imaginative work, where things and persons
whom we know to be unreal are presented with
a degree of reality which is exactly proportioned
to the expression desired, yet in no way suggesting
literal imitation. In fine taste, as in his other
great qualities, he was, I think, the greatest
artist of his time. And we should take courage
from his example, when we see that even in our
matter-of-fact times ideals are not disregarded
either by the artist or by those to whom he
appeals.

V

DRAWING

107

V

DRAWING

DRAWING is an obvious convention, for
we do not see lines round or upon objects,
but one tint adjusted against another.
Yet it comes more naturally to us to represent
things by this convention of lines than by tones
and gradations, such as a photograph from
nature gives us. Primitive people naturally
express things by outlines, and are satisfied
with the idea of the object so conveyed ; and
in early days, before there were, as we may
suppose, any theories or schools, expression by
drawing, in outlines or in fiat masses, was evi-
dently held to be sufficient. It was only slowly
and gradually that drawing advanced from a
mere symbol, to the stage of imitation or repre-
sentation, in light and shadow, of the appearance
of things.

no Lectures on Painting

Drawing is a form of expression, like speech
or writing — I think, indeed, that drawing is the
foundation of our alphabet — and although
painting has long passed its primitive stages,
and aims at imitating the effect of nature, yet
the object of painting and its kindred arts is
still the same as it was at the beginning ; ex-
pression. And if our art is to be vital, it must,
whatever be its method, have expression as its
object ; there must be something the artist
has to say.

If we consider drawing as an art of expression,
it gives us, I think, the key to other forms of
art, such as those of the Orientals ; which we
cannot easily grasp, because we do not, as it
were, know the language. And the earliest
Western art — such, for instance, as that shown
in the Celtic manuscripts — is for the same reason
strange to us, though it was, no doubt, natural
and perfectly intelligible at the time. And we
may notice, in passing, how the rudest and most
summary representation of an object or figure
will even now satisfy ignorant people or children,
whose perceptions in these matters seem to be

Drawing

1 1 1

in the same stage as those of primitive races :
they do not require more than a few signs by
which to identify an object. Drawing makes
the most direct appeal to our intelhgence, and
whatever idea an artist wishes to convey can
be conveyed by Hne, so that it is the foundation
of an artist's study. It is difficult, of course, to
draw well ; and so high a standard has been set
that it is impossible to excel what has already
been done : we should study the work of the
great men, in order that we may, if possible,
approach to this high standard.

We can, I think, roughly classify drawing
into two divisions, which correspond to a very
rough and loose distinction which may be drawn
between old and modern painting ; the older
paintings and drawings being marked by the
search for form, and for expression by form :
and the later by the development of " effect,"
that is, of the influence of light and colour on
form. We know the finished paintings of the
great artists fairly well, but their drawings
help us to understand them by showing the
first steps, and, one may say, the scaffold-

112 Lectures on Painting

ing by means of which their work was built
up.

We may touch on the drawings of some of the
early artists which show the study for form,
and on some by artists of our own day whose
work has been influenced by them ; all figure
studies. It should be noticed, however, that
there is a difference between these studies and
the studies which students make in schools.
These were made with an intention, for a
purpose ; and not, as school studies are made,
only for the sake of the study itself. As we all
know, there is no better method of teaching
drawing than through the study of the figure ;
and study in schools has everywhere replaced
the older system, of pupils working in a master's
studio. Yet it is very doubtful whether, with
all the advantages a student has nowadays (for
I don't suppose any of the old masters had five
years' continuous practice in drawing and paint-
ing, without a thought except how to express
what was before him), the system of schools gives
as good a training as the old system, of pupils
working under a master for a definite purpose.

Drawing

113

The work of the older artists, even those not of
the first rank, is remarkable for its satisfactory
accomplishment, for going straight to the point ;
while our work seems more or less tentative :
and I think it probable that one reason for this
weakness is that we depend too much on the
posed model. The effort to merely imitate the
model, acquired in the school, may become a
lifelong habit, obscuring or excluding the intelli-
gent study of form as shown in natural move-
ment ; through the mistaken point of view that
the school-work is an end, whereas it is only a
means to an end.

Very few of the earliest painters' drawings
exist or are known, but the work of Masaccio
may be referred to for its fine drawing, and also
the work of Pisanello, whose beautiful drawing
can be seen best in his medals; of Piero della
Francesca, and of Crivelli. There is also in the
British Museum a wonderful sketch-book by
Jacopo Bellini, of the year 1430, which should
be studied ; it is full of designs for compositions,
and drawings from life, of the greatest charm

and delicacy, with, of course, the angularities
8

114 Lectures on Painting

which are characteristic of early work. In this
angularity the Italians resemble the Flemings;
though, as might be expected, the Italian work is
finer in type and in proportion than the Flemish
work, in which the effort was to be strictly true
to nature, regardless of its imperfections and
awkwardnesses. There is a drawing by Van
Eyck in the Antwerp Museum — strictly speaking,
it is an unfinished picture — of St. Barbara. The
whole subject is carefully drawn in, and only the
sky and part of the distant landscape is painted,
but everything is drawn throughout with the
most beautiful precision and delicacy. The
work of Peter Breughel, too, is very fine in
drawing, in the same definite manner.

The greatest draughtsman of the primitive
painters was perhaps Diirer, and everything of
his that can be seen is worth studying for its
unsurpassable thoroughness and fineness. We
see in his work the search for accurate definition
of form carried to its furthest point, with great
simplicity of method. The illustration, a drawing
of hands and arms, a study for the plate of Adam
and Eve, is a good example of the thoroughness

Musce de Montaiihnn
(By periiiission of M. 'J. J:, /iu/oz, Paris)

STUDY OF DRAPERY

Drawing

115

of his work ; yet though it is so fine it has a
distinct manner : we can tell that it is a German
drawing. This German manner, though present
in the work of Holbein, is not so marked as in
Diirer. It is, indeed, absent from the matchless
portrait drawings of his in the Royal collection
at Windsor; these drawings are above manner-
ism, and must be as true to nature as it is possible
to be. In looking at them we are reminded only
of nature, not of any other artist ; and this is
only the case with the greatest work.

If we consider what is the difference between
the Flemish or German and the Italian manner,
it is, I think, that the Northern artists relied
on observation only, while the Italians were able
to reinforce their observation by some standard
of form and proportion. And while there is a
wider observation of character and freer in-
vention in the Northern work, there is a finer
judgment in the Italian, a greater sense of
beauty. And if we go further, and inquire why
a figure having certain proportions is perfect
and beautiful, while one having different pro-
portions is not, we get into speculations on the

ii6 Lectures on Painting

nature of beauty, on what it rests or depends,
which are difficult, and perhaps insoluble. We
must take it for granted that certain proportions,
arrived at long ago by the Greeks, give the
most perfect human type. We cannot tell
why the proportions of a Doric or Ionic column
are beautiful. We know that they satisfy us,
and that we could not improve on them; but
we do not know how many efforts, how many
trials were made before this perfect form was
reached.

The pre-Raphaelite painters took their inspira-
tion from the Flemish and Italian Primitives,
and the fine school of illustrators, in which
Walker, Houghton, Sandys, and Pinwell were
the leading men, owes its impulse to the pre-
Raphaelites ; more especially, perhaps, to Millais
and Rossetti, whose drawings are well worth
study.

Leonardo da Vinci was one of the greatest
draughtsmen, and one gains a truer idea of his
power from his drawings than from his paintings.
He was the first who thoroughly broke away
from the stiffness and " posed " look of the

Drawing

117

earlier artists, and gave the freedom of natural
movement. We may see from his anatomical
studies what immense pains and trouble he
took to get a thorough knowledge of form and
construction, searching for its finest type and
for true movement, and putting down his line —
a most beautiful hne — with the greatest pre-
cision and delicacy. Yet there is a certain
restraint in his drawing which we do not find
in the drawing of Raphael, which is true, and,
at the same time, free and unrestrained. In the
drawing by Raphael given as an illustration
(the original is in the British Museum), it may
be seen how everything is beautifully given with
the simplest means, so that one feels it to be
altogether right. We need not touch on the
followers of Raphael, but we should study
Ingres, one of the greatest draughtsmen who
followed his ideals, whose drawings are excellent
examples of style; and the drawings of Lord
Leighton, which are worthy to rank with those
of Ingres as carrying on the Academic tradition.

The main point about these drawings is that
they are drawn from construction — that is,

ii8 Lectures on Painting

from an intelligent understanding of how a
figure is put together ; not from unthinkingly
copying the model just as he happens to be
at the moment, as is so often done in life schools.
Of course, in drawing from a model, one has to
copy him, but it should be borne in mind that
one gains most, not by imitating the model,
but by trying to learn from him ; so that, when
our student days are over, and we may have,
perhaps, but a short time to make a drawing
from life, or may even have to draw from
memory, we can bring some store of knowledge
to bear on our work ; otherwise we are helpless,
unless we can get long sittings. Raphael's
drawing cannot have taken him more than
half an hour, but there is everything in it ; and
Michelangelo's drawings also show this swift
application of great knowledge. I do not think
we could have a better method of drawing from
life than that of Raphael and Michelangelo, and
one may instance Alfred Stevens, Millet, and
Watts as showing the influence of this fine
tradition. One may trace Michelangelo through-
out Stevens's work. Millet, though he was not

/

Lord Leighton, P.R.A.

STUDY FROM LIFE

(CHAl.K drawing)

Royal Acndeiiiy

}

G. F. Watts, R.A.

STUDY FROM LIFE
(chalk drawinc;)

Royal Academy

Drawing

119

a follower in the strict sense, as Stevens was,
was inspired by him in seeking the significance
and expressiveness of movement ; and so was
Watts, whose drawings have the quiet, unques-
tionable authority of a great master, in every
line.

The drawings of these artists have one thing
in common, although their methods differ, and
that is : expression through definition of the
form, and not through light and shade or effect.
One is often asked in the life school, when re-
commending a student to think only of the form
in drawing, whether, since form is only mani-
fested by means of gradations, one should not
try to express the gradations and so give the
form. If it were possible for the student to do
this there would be no objection ; but it is
difficult to learn the form alone, and when form
is complicated with questions of gradation and
tone, not only on the figure itself, but on its
background and surroundings (for all these
must be studied if the relation of tones is at-
tempted), it becomes impossible. Therefore it
is best frankly to adopt the convention of out-

I20 Lectures on Painting

line, to forget the background, and to think only
of modelling by light and shadow, and so to
express the form.

The search for form, through true construction,
is the firm basis of an artist's work. We should
in our student days get ourselves as firmly
grounded in form as we can. We should strive
for this knowledge, even if our taste may lead
us towards expression through colour, and we
eventually give form the second place. For an
artist can never, I feel sure, develop his gifts
as a colourist unless he has this firm ground-
work. In support of this, I may cite a most
interesting letter from Whistler, whose genius as
a colourist is unquestioned, which was recently^
published in the Gazette des Beaux- Arts. It
was written to his friend Fantin, the painter, in
1867, and puts the case for severe draughtsman-
ship admirably. It is well worth reading in its
entirety, but one may quote a few passages. He
begins by saying that he is working very hard :
" For I must tell you that I am now much more
exacting and hard to please than when I threw

* Gazette des Beaux-Arts, September 1905.

Drawing

121

everything pell-mell on the canvas, knowing that
instinct and good colour would always pull me
through. . . . Ah, my dear Fantin, what an
education I am giving myself ! or rather, what
a terrible lack of education I feel ! With my own
natural gifts, what a painter I should be now, if,
vain, and content with these qualities, I had not
despised everything else ! " Then he goes on to
regret coming under the influence of Courbet and
realism : " This damned Realism," he says,
*' made immediate appeal to my painter's vanity,
mocking at all traditions, and crying aloud with
the assurance of ignorance, ' Vive la nature ! '
This cry has been a great misfortune for me."
" One had only to open one's eyes and paint
what was before one." And he instances his
pictures, the "Piano," the "White Girl," the
Thames and sea pictures, accusing himself of
vanity in showing splendid gifts, which, with a
severe education, would have made him a master.
He goes on to say, " Why was I not a pupil of
Ingres ? " not, he explains, that he likes Ingres's
work, but he says, " How healthy his influence
would have been ! " " Drawing, above all," he

122

Lectures on Painting

says. Colour alone is vice, though certainly it
may be, and should be, one of the greatest
virtues. Well controlled by a strong hand, well
guided by her master, drawing, colour is then
like a splendid woman with a husband worthy of
her." He concludes by saying that he has been
educating himself in this direction for a long
time, and feels sure that he will conquer his
faults.

I think he was hardly just to himself. Probably
the letter was written in a fit of depression, for
certainly the pictures he names are beautiful in
drawing as well as in colour. Yet the letter is a
true " cry from the heart."

One may ask, Should we take any one manner
as an example ? I think not ; although, no doubt,
the finest style of drawing is that of which we
may take Ingres's and Watts's work as examples,
following the traditions of the great Italians : and
we should try to get the accuracy, the largeness,
and simplicity that these drawings show. I
don't think one could take up any of the earlier
methods without making it a kind of pose. The
work of the early men gives us the lesson that

Drawing

123

we should be faithful to nature; the greatest
men show the greatest truth to nature, and are
certainly the best to study. Though when we
go through a gallery we don't estimate each work
according as it approaches or falls short of the
grand style. We take it for what it is ; and, in
looking at a number of pictures, we make the
acquaintance, as it were, of so many different
temperaments, holding each in a certain esteem.

It is largely a question of temperament, and
even of individual eyesight. One man will feel
that he can only express nature by patiently and
exhaustively representing everything, like Van
Eyck ; while another will feel large masses and
movements to be more important. The whole
range of art is now part of our common know-
ledge ; yet each one of us, in a way, must begin
at the beginning, and in himself, in his own
small way, go through all the stages that the art
has gone through ; beginning carefully, even
hardly, and gradually and naturally arriving at
as much freedom as he can attain to.

VI

DRAWING

125

British lliisciim

STUDY OF FIGURE
(chalk drawing)

VI

DRAWING

DRAWING may be considered not only as
realising and expressing actual form, but
also as recording the appearance of things
under varying conditions of light ; this is the
modern " point of view. In the early work, every
figure or accessory was studied rather for itself
than as a part of the whole ; in modern work,
each figure or object takes its place in the scale
of light, shade, or colour, in which the picture
is arranged. This wider range includes landscape
painting, and the association of figures with
landscape under its varying conditions ; it
shows not so much a deeper insight as a wider
sympathy with nature, for it would be impossible
to surpass the depth of sentiment or feeling
which we find in the early artists' works.

In speaking of the modern point of view, I

127

128 Lectures on Painting

would take Titian as its starting-point ; and I
think that Claude, Rembrandt, Gainsborough,
and Watteau may be given as artists whose work
shows this tendency, of drawing for effect, rather
than for form ; though perhaps Watteau shows
a balance of both tendencies, and is hardly so
definite an example as is Claude or Rembrandt.
In the drawing by Titian, given as an illustration,
it is remarkable how much is conveyed by very
simple means — the air, and movement of the
sky, are suggested ; and in Gainsborough's
drawings there is also this suggestion of life and
movement, conveyed — as in the illustration given
— with a very charming, if mannered, touch, by
the arrangement of light and shadow.

Watteau in his drawings shows the influence
of Rubens, and though the Fleming is robust
and natural in his movements, and the French-
man delicate, and perhaps a little affected —
Millet criticised his figures as marionettes —
yet each conveys the sense of life and action.
In Watteau's drawings this is given by the most
delicate, and yet precise, indications ; his touch
is so beautiful, so sensitive and fine, that his

Drawing

129

drawings are most delightful things for an artist
to study ; and we may notice, in the illustrations '
given, how daintily and finely the movement
of the figures is given, and how well the dresses,
and the design of their folds, are suggested.

Claude's drawings are of the greatest interest
and beauty ; in them he shows himself to be even
greater, as an artist, than we know him to be
through his paintings. We all know the special
beauties of his work : his wonderful skill in
expressing light, by his perception of delicate
gradations extending through a wide range,
and the clearness and freshness of his tints.
He gives, with every appearance of truth, the
illusion of the sun shining in the clear sky, or
the receding planes of a wide prospect, all full
of air ; and it is done so finely that his work
has never been surpassed. But with this, there
is a methodical planning and " staging " in
many of his pictures ; they are too obviously
composed : and they are animated by a con-
ventional and quite uninteresting set of person-
ages. But these weak points are overpowered
and redeemed by the greatness of his artist's
9

130 Lectures on Painting

vision ; and it is with the pleasure of a surprise
that one finds, on going through Claude's draw-
ings in the British Museum — there are over
three hundred in the National collection, most
of them studies from, or for, his compositions —
quite a large number of fresh and most beautiful
studies from nature, of trees, buildings, and
views, all most carefully drawn and individualised,
and studied for effect. They are nearly all in
bistre, done with pen and wash ; and are evi-
dently made direct from nature, with a simple
enjoyment in what was before him. These
drawings are much more attractive, to me,
than the elaborate compositions which we know
so well, which were no doubt painted to meet
the taste of the time ; for it must be remem-
bered that pure landscape as in itself a motive
for a picture was at that time hardly conceivable ;
landscape was used as the setting of a formal
scene, and the landscape painter had, in a sense,
to express himself indirectly.

The spirit of these sketches is quite free and
delightful, as may be seen in those chosen for
illustration. The " Study of Trees " is as true

Drawing

a study as could be made ; easy, and at the
same time precise as possible, giving the sense
of Hfe in the trees. Another drawing is of a

Tree- trunk " covered with ivy, and every leaf
and stem is drawn minutely ; the arrangement
of light and shade in this study is beautiful.
An early drawing, a "Study of Boats," is very
delicate and precise, and is good in arrangement ;
and the drawing of " Trees by a River," one of
the most beautiful, is remarkable for its effect
of sunshine ; it is beautiful in composition,
reminding us of Wilson, and Corot, and indeed of
almost every landscape painter : for many
works have been, and are, painted on these lines.

Claude's practice was evidently to make first
the careful outline — to draw the structure —
and then to wash in his effect, all in monochrome.
It is a good method of sketching, and should be
more practised ; for it is worthy of notice that
one seldom finds sketches from nature in
colour among the old painters' studies. They
are nearly always in point, or pen and wash,
recording the facts and the main gradations ;
and colour was doubtless, with them, largely a

132 Lectures on Painting

matter of observation and memory. Indeed,
it is probable that they did not approach nature
in the sense of reproducing the effect of its
colour, as we try to, but laid the greater stress
on the gradations of light and shadow; and
this would account for the brown foregrounds
and strong darks which we see in old landscapes.

Among all the Claude drawings in the British
Museum, there is only one — of a Roman arch —
which is altogether in colour, although there
are slight indications in some others ; it is,
however, recorded that Claude did paint direct
from nature, indeed that he was one of the first
artists to do so ; but none of these studies are
known to exist.

The early sketch-books of Turner show that he
worked in the same way as Claude, making out-
lines and wash drawings ; and no doubt it was
the usual method. But his later sketches were
in colour, and Constable's sketches are mostly in
colour ; and though landscape painting has lost
the big grasp of nature which we see in Claude
and Turner, some advance has been made ;
there is a nearer approach to general truth of

Drawing

133

colour. We have, however, only gained truth in
matters of detail, at the cost of the effect. Per-
haps it is impossible to combine the two things ;
and I think it is, at any rate if so wide a field of
vision is taken as Claude and Turner employed ;
with a smaller field it can be done, and has been,
by Constable and his successors.

We are, I think, too much given to copying the
facts of nature, and do not sufficiently regard
the beauty of its constantly changing effects.
To record these, a simple and rapid method is
desirable, such as is seen in Claude's drawings,
and in those of Rembrandt, the greatest master
of all in gradation. Rembrandt ignores regular
beauty of form, or proportion ; concentrating on
expression, character, and action, with strong
human sympathy and dramatic instinct. He
approaches his subject always by light and
shadow, or by the suggestion of it, even in his line
drawings. Perhaps this point can be made
clearer by a comparison ; if we take the work
of Charles Keene, the one English draughtsman
who comes nearest to Rembrandt, we find in it
an instinctive selection of the line or accent which

134 Lectures on Painting

gives movement or expression ; and this accent
is, it seems to me, determined by shadow, or
expresses shadow, as with Rembrandt. If now
we take the work of another great draughtsman,
Phil May, who also, like Keene, sought expression
with the greatest economy of line, we find that
his accents are determined by form ; even by
outline, as with Diirer or Ingres, rather than by
light and shade.

The drawings illustrated are an " Interior," a
fine example of Rembrandt's method, a most
beautiful study of gradation ; and a " Winter
Landscape," one of the finest of his many land-
scape studies. In this drawing it should be
noticed how beautifully it is all drawn. The
proportions of things at different distances are
so well given, and the pen-work is splendid ;
the accents are as fine and as delicate as possible
in the distant parts, but strong and decisive in
the foreground. The sentiment and even the
colour of winter is finely expressed.

To sum up : there are many methods, but any
one is good, provided that nature is studied in-
telligently. It really depends on what it is

Drawing

135

desired to express ; and as this rests on tempera-
ment, so each one must find his method. But,
for study, the best method is, I am sure, to draw in
Hne, and as searchingly as possible, so as to learn
form ; and afterwards, taking a wider view, to
study light and its gradations. This is the
groundwork ; beyond this it rests on individual
judgment and feeling. One cannot imagine such
a work as Madox Brown's "Last of England"
could be painted in any other way than it is ; it
demands our most searching attention in every
detail, and the more we take in, the more we
feel the strength and pathos of the picture : the
interest accumulates and intensifies with each
thing that is observed. It is defined throughout ;
there is no " losing and finding" : we do that in
our minds by dwelling on the importance of
some things over others. But the sentiment of
a work may be quite as strongly conveyed by
different means; as in Rembrandt's "Adoration
of the Shepherds." This, and the " Last of
England," have one thing in common, expres-
sive design ; but while Madox Brown gives an
accumulation of detail, Rembrandt hardly gives

136 Lectures on Painting

any, and produces his effect by subtle variations
of tone. In the one case the picture is hke a
story read to us, we are told everything ; in the
other, we are brought, by means so subtle that
we do not realise them, into the mood and
meaning of the picture.

The art of Ingres is beautiful and exact, the
perfection of accomplishment, but lacking, or
almost lacking, in human interest and sympathy ;
and in this he falls far short of Raphael, who is
very human. The art of Rembrandt is vague and
uncertain, regardless of formal beauty, but full of
emotion ; sympathetic, unmatchable in force of
expression. If we compare these two men, we
find that they represent opposite tendencies of
the artist's mind. In the case of Ingres, we find
reason, measurement, close searching, impelled
by a desire to express with exactness the beauty
of form ; it is the scientific side of the artist's
mind, the spirit of the seeker or inquirer. One
does not trouble about what his figures are doing ;
his pictures are uninteresting, but the skilful
drawing charms us. Rembrandt is quite the
opposite ; the whole impulse is to give expression,

Drawing

137

and any means is used, any suggestion taken to
help. His figures interest, in themselves ; and
because we feel this interest we find the method
beautiful by which it is conveyed. Rembrandt's
is the impulsive, the " artistic " temperament ;
Ingres's fault is that his work is too perfect in
proportion to its human interest : there is very
little heart in his work. Still, and perhaps
because of this — that his only pre-occupation is
with the posed model — his drawings are fine
models for method in life-drawing. One could
not say this of Rembrandt, though he is
immeasurably greater than Ingres ; and, however
great is the importance of training, it only
supplements natural endowment : it cannot take
the place of it.

VII

QUALITY IN COLOUR

139

STUDY OF A TREE-TRUNK

(I'KX AND WASH 1)HA\VIN<;)

VII

QUALITY IN COLOUR^

IT is a common experience that an engraving
or a photograph of a picture does not give
us the same impression as the original
work ; we find often that a picture which may
look well in a reproduction has very little charm
in itself, as a painting : or a picture which is not
at all effective in black and white, may in itself,
as a painting, be beautiful. This is, of course,
dependent on the effect of colour ; whether it is
true, harmonious, or fine in quality. We can
judge drawing, or movement, equally well in a
photograph or in a picture — there is no mystery
about it ; but colour is full of mysteries and
subtleties. Its effects are produced by means
which are hardly definable, for, as we know, the

1 The pictures mentioned in this lecture are in the National
Gallery, unless otherwise indicated.

141

142 Lectures on Painting

actual colours used in a picture are not what
they profess to be ; and we may accept a passage
in a picture as white — that is, as representing
white, and so, for the purpose of illusion, of
being white — while it may actually be, as a
pigment, yellow, grey, brown, or blue ; its
apparent value as a colour depending on its
relation to other colours in the same picture.

This is a question of the value of colours
rather than of their quality. The quality of a
colour depends on the way the paint is put on,
rather than on the colour itself. For instance,
one may see two copies of the same picture, and
at a little distance one copy may seem as good
as the other ; but if we examine them closely, we
may find that one copy has heavy, disagreeable
paint, while the other may have the clearness
and charm of the original. In the one case the
quality of the paint is bad, in the other good.
What makes the difference ?

It is, mainly, the clearness of the paint ; that it
is untroubled, not churned up into a mess, but
put down simply and sweetly, so that it looks
to be lightly and easily done. This fine quality

Quality in Colour 143

of paint, joined, of course, with good drawing
and harmonious colour, is what we look for, and
find, in the finest work. But quality of colour,
important though it is, is, I think, a minor
beauty ; harmony of colour is of greater import-
ance. For the difficult thing to do, in making
a picture, is to estabhsh the right relations
between the colours of the different parts, so
that the picture is in harmony ; this, especially,
is where talent and judgment are shown. A
picture may be painted in solid colour throughout,
altered and repainted until its colours are
harmonious ; and though the quality of the
paint may not be fine, still it may be a good
picture. On the other hand, one may recall
pictures — for example, some of the early Victorian
time, by painters who came after Lawrence — in
which quality of colour is the principal merit ;
pictures in which the flesh is pearly, the lights
are brilliant, and the shadows transparent. In
these works everything is skilfully done, but
still as a whole they are not good ; because
the minor beauty of quality was sought, and
the more important thing — the harmonious

144 Lectures on Painting

relation of the colours to each other — was dis-
regarded.

The aspect, or effect, of the picture depends
on the harmony between its parts, and shows
the painter's perception, or sense, of colour.
We may compare Bronzino's fine " Venus and
Cupid," in this respect, with Tintoret's " Milky
Way." The two pictures are somewhat alike
in their elements, and in each the quality of the
paint is fine. Bronzino's is beautifully drawn,
the colour fresh and clear, but as a whole it is
discordant compared with the Tintoret ; its
colours seem too obvious. Another instance is
the beautiful picture by Beltraffio, the " Madonna
and Child," a picture fine in design, drawing,
expression, and execution. It is painted as
clearly and definitely as possible ; the quality
of the paint is beautiful, but the flesh-colour is
not : the flesh looks hard, like wax.

A fine quality of paint, in itself, tells us that
the painter understood his methods ; and when,
in addition, the picture conveys to us the beauty
of nature, we recognise the great artist : a man of
fine perceptions, and master of his means.

Quality in Colour 145

It is, I think, hardly too much to say that the
pictures which have been treasured for centuries,
and have come down to us as precious things,
have kept their place more by reason of their
colour than through their drawing. Drawing
commands our respect, but we love fine colour ;
and such work as that of Ingres, of Ary Scheffer,
or Gerome, although it may be faultless in
drawing, does not stand against the work of
colourists like Delacroix or Bonington ; it would
even seem as if bad drawing may be forgiven,
but not bad colour. Much of the work of
Manet, for instance, is ill-drawn and repellent ;
but the colour, in itself, and in its harmony with
other colours, is nearly always fine. It would
seem as if he was content to let everything else
go, if he could only get beautiful, fresh, clear
paint in his work. And it is one of Velasquez's
distinctions that he got this beautiful freshness of
paint, with fine draughtsmanship ; which no one
else has been able to do.

It has been said that time and varnish are the

greatest of the old masters; I don't think this

is so. I don't believe that time or varnish ever
10

146 Lectures on Painting

made a bad picture into a good one; although
time improves a good picture, and no doubt
some pictures owe their richness partly to their
varnish. For instance, there are two small
pictures in the National Gallery — the Adoration
of the Kings,'* by Filippino Lippi, and the
** Israelites gathering Manna," by Ercole di
Roberti — which have an extraordinary depth
and richness of colour (in the picture of the
Israelites there is a beautiful opposition of blue
and gold) which I think is to some extent un-
doubtedly due to a warm varnish. But the
pictures must always have been beautiful in
quality, and clear, for they are, I think, both
painted in tempera ; and unvarnished tempera
pictures are very luminous. One may see this in
the large altarpiece by Crivelli, which appears to
be as fresh, and as free from any sign of change,
as when it was painted ; and there is an early
St. Sebastian, also unvarnished, and as clear
as on the day it was done. These works have
nothing to gain by varnish ; they would rather
lose. One may take, as a later instance, two
pictures by Henry Morland (the father of George

Quality in Colour

H7

Morland) of girls washing and ironing. Morland
and Reynolds were contemporaries (the dates of
their birth and death almost coincide) ; but what
a difference between the two artists' works!
norland's are bad in colour and poor in quality ;
they are dull and chalky. The other contem-
porary works in the same room, though darker,
are more brilliant ; yet they have been equally
subject to time, and, we may presume, to varnish
also. So we may conclude that the good picture
was always good, and the bad picture always bad.

Each method of painting — fresco, tempera,
and oil — has a quality peculiar to itself ; and the
greater flexibility of oil-painting makes it possible
to use it in three different ways — as transparent
colour, as opaque colour, or as a combination of
these two, which is the usual way. And so there
are wide differences in oil-paintings ; but frescoes,
such as those hanging on one wall of the National
Gallery, by Signorelli, by Perugino, and by
Pintoricchio, are all very similar in general
effect : and this is due partly to the limited
number of the colours employed, all earths or
minerals, and partly to the medium itself. As

148 Lectures on Painting

we know, the colours are painted on and into a
wet-plaster ground, and so form part of it.
The surface of the fresco is the granular surface
of the plaster, and the colours being dry, like
pastel, reflect more light, and are more brilliant
than when mixed with oil.

Fresco has also a peculiar greyness, an aerial
quality, produced throughout by the little lights
and shadows on each granulation of the surface.
There is a tempera picture by Roger Van der
Weyden, a " Deposition," which is painted on
a canvas showing a strong grain ; its effect is
similar to that of a fresco, and is produced by
similar means — the unevenness of the surface.
This delicate veiling of light gives a peculiar
beauty to fresco, and helps to harmonise the
colours; though these are always beautiful in
themselves, through being painted at once on
the white plaster, which gives the same sense of
light within the colour, as is given by the under-
lying white paper to a wash of water-colour.
The surface of a roughly painted oil picture, so
long as it is unvarnished, has the same veihng of
light as a fresco, and much the same effect.

Quality in Colour 149

It is worth while remembering that no altera-
tions can be made in fresco, and that in tempera
alterations will show in the course of time. We
can see these retouchings in some pictures — for
instance, on one of the figures in Van der Weyden's
picture ; and in the " Death of Procris," by
Piero di Cosimo, there is a correction in the
drawing of the hand that lies on the ground.
In both cases the correction is muddy in colour,
while the rest of the picture is as clear as can be.
The " Death of Procris," one of the most beautiful
works in the gallery, is particularly fine in quality
throughout ; it is clear all through, and the
landscape is especially beautiful, and very simply
done. The fine landscape and sky, too, in
Michelangelo's unfinished " Entombment," is a
thing to notice ; it seems to be done in the
simplest possible way — just a delicate wash on
a white ground ; yet it suggests finely the depth
and transparency of the sky. The small "Cruci-
fixion " by Antonello da Messina is beautiful
in the same way, and so is the little " Madonna
and Child " by Pintoricchio.

We can see, from an unfinished " Nativity,"

150 Lectures on Painting

by Piero della Francesca, how carefully every-
thing was planned out, drawn, and painted,
piece by piece ; with exact knowledge of how
it was all to come together. And the early
Flemings — Van Eyck, Memling, and their school —
worked in the same deliberate way. The St.
Barbara," by Van Eyck, shows his careful
preparations ; the only difference between the
Flemings and Italians being that the former
used an oil varnish, which allowed the work
to be continued indefinitely, instead of an egg
medium. But they were just as careful to keep
the colour clear, and to avoid alterations.

It is curious to notice, in so much of the early
work, that the lights, such as flesh, etc., were kept
transparent, with the ground showing through,
while the darks were loaded with thick paint.
We may see this in Bellini's head of " Peter
Martyr," Holbein's "Duchess of Milan," and
other works. This method is quite the reverse
of that in oil-painting, where the lights are loaded
and the shadows kept as clear, or as thin, as
possible ; and I think it likely that the power
which oil-painting gives of using a thick body

Quality in Colour 1 5 1

of white, gave it its victory over tempera, by
enabling the artist to alter a work in progress.

The large painting by Catena, the " Warrior
adoring the Infant Christ," is one of the finest
pictures in the gallery for the rich quality of its
colour ; and though one can hardly think it
possible, it seems to be painted straight away,
in its full strength and almost at one painting,
in transparent colour on a white ground : one
can trace the ground under the paint throughout.
It is difficult to realise the perfect command of
means which this work indicates, and it is hardly
too much to say that no one to-day could do
it. I do not know an artist now who does not
arrive at his colour gradually ; getting the
whole picture laid in, and then by degrees bring-
ing it into harmony, by altering a tone here or
a colour there, until he feels that he has got his
work into balance. But in this picture all these
matters seem to have been decided before any
colour was put on the canvas at all. So that
when it is once put on, it remains in absolute
freshness and purity.

Now, what does it mean, this colour put down

152 Lectures on Painting

once for all and never changed ? It seems to
me — and it will, I think, be apparent to any of
us — that it indicates a most wonderful mastery,
a skill practically unknown to-day. We all
of us make many alterations, and cannot get
our work to satisfy us without infinite labour and
revision ; but these men did their work at once,
with something of the ease and certainty that a
house-painter shows in graining a door (and
there is often a beautiful quality of colour in
this quickly -done grainer's work). We may
grant that the early painters were ignorant of
many things which we have to learn, and that
the problem of representation was a more simple
one for them ; we may make every allowance
for ourselves, yet we must acknowledge that the
men who were able to work in this way were
very great masters indeed.

Tempera painting is hardly practised now,
and indeed all this early art is practically a closed
book ; our conditions are so different that it
cannot arise again, naturally, with us : the
impulse is gone. But I have dwelt on the work
of these early men because it shows, in the

Quality in Colour 153

simplest and most definite form, the underlying
thing about all good work— that we must know
clearly what we want to do. And also, of course,
we must learn how to do it. The old painters,
as we may see from Cennini's book, laid the
greatest stress upon methods ; talent could look
out for itself, but the painter must learn his
trade. These men seem to have worked in the
spirit of happy children, satisfied with the means
at their command. We, knowing all that has
been done, are by so much the more unsatisfied.

The sleeve in Titian's so-called " Ariosto " is
a magnificent piece of work of the finest quality ;
though it is a dark colour it seems full of light.
One cannot see how it is done, but I should think
that, like the pictures by Catena, it is painted
thinly over white. The later work of Titian
seems to be more frankly painted ; although
it may be laid in first in black and white, the
painting seems to be simple and direct through-
out : one can, of course, see that there are
alternations of thick and thin colour, and that
the large masses of colour, blue and red draperies,
etc., are finished with thin paintings over a

154 Lectures on Painting

solid lighter underpainting. The great depth
of colour without heaviness, which Titian's work
shows, can only have been reached gradually;
and though Titian no doubt made alterations
(one can see a retouching on the nose of Mary
Magdalen in " Noli me tangere "), a passage
altered would probably be effaced down to the
ground or foundation before repainting. I once
saw, in Mr. Watts's studio, one of his pictures in
this state. The picture had been finished, but
he had decided to change one of the figures ;
and the changed figure was laid in in solid black
and white, or umber and white, the rest of the
picture being, of course, in its finished state :
when this was dry it would be painted on, and
brought into harmony with the rest of the
picture, and the alteration would never show.

Titian's paint is beautiful in quality, his
pictures are beautiful as a whole ; and I think
that the greatest beauty of his work is in its
harmony, in the relation of one tone to another,
rather than the richness of any one. This
harmony seems to depend on the management
of the half-tones and darks, which support the

Quality in Colour 155

colours ; and surely this is the most difficult part
of painting. For things in light are obvious and
can be painted definitely ; they make a point of
departure. But passages of half-tone, such as
those of flesh in shadow, of which there is a good
instance in Tintoret's "Milky Way"; things
which, though they are dark, appear light, these
subtle things are the difficult ones. In this
picture the deepest darks are not heavy, and
the shadows are different in kind from the lights,
as they are in nature. But here, again, it is not
so much the quality of the shadow, or of any
other passage in itself, that is so fine, as the
relation of the lights and shadows to each other,
with a beautiful quality of paint.

And Rembrandt's work is the same ; it is full
of delicate glazings, and repaintings in solid
colour, which were glazed down again to get the
sense of light in the shadows ; though in many
of his single heads he painted quite frankly and
simply. The " Old Lady's Head " is, apparently,
done in one painting. We may note in this that
the shadow side of the face is in transparent
colour, and contrasts with the rich, full painting

156 Lectures on Painting

of the lights ; and the portrait of "Titus" in the
Wallace Gallery is frankly done, and is, I think,
fairly solid paint throughout. It seems as if the
method of glazing and repainting was used to
increase the range of the colour.

After all, the quality of paint is a matter of
perception and feeling rather than of rule ; if an
artist feels the beauty of surfaces, the range and
variety of light in nature, he will make some
approach to it in his work. The ordinary
straightforward method of painting — to paint
the apparent colour at once (that is, to learn to
see) — is a good one, as far as it goes ; the best, I
think, for school practice. But it only goes a
little way. Practically, it is best in a study or
sketch which we can get through at a sitting ; and
if we attempt a subject that embraces a wide
range of colour, or light, we find we have to get
an extension of the range by varying the kind of
paint ; with transparent colour in some places,
and solid in others. One may go through all the
great painters' works, and throughout it seems
to be felt that the paint in the shadow passages
must be of a different and more subtle kind than

Quality in Colour 157

that in the lights. Where this is not done there
is a certain monotony in the work ; as in some of
the larger paintings of Frans Hals (the one in the
present Old Masters' exhibition is an example
which are painted solidly throughout : in any one
of the single heads in the picture it is not so
apparent.

For beautiful quality of paint Watteau and
Gainsborough are remarkable. Watteau gives
a beautiful effect by brilHant touches alternating
with transparent colour ; his colours look as if
mixed with some rich varnish, and have the
brilliant quality of enamel : and there is the same
quality of paint in the little picture by Le Nain,
" Le Gouter."

But for the charm of a fresh, light touch, I
doubt if any painter equals Gainsborough at his
best. Velasquez and Frans Hals are the only
painters who can be compared with him in this
respect. But Hals is dull, and even Velasquez
looks a little heavy beside Gainsborough. I
could not help feeling this in a recent exhibition,

1 Old Masters, 1906. No. 102 : Portrait of the Painter and
his family.

158 Lectures on Painting

where Velasquez's fine "Venus" was hanging be-
tween two portraits by Gainsborough ; the Venus
looked heavy beside their freedom and lightness
of touch. And in the two fine portraits in the
present exhibition ^ — especially the lady's — the
colour is put on with an enjoyment which must
be felt by the spectator. It is so fresh and clear
that it seems a different kind of paint from that
in other men's works; yet this is only because
of the beautiful freedom of the work. I have
often wondered, in looking at Gainsborough's
work and that of other painters who painted
very thinly, how they got over the painter's
constant difficulty of the paint " drying in "
in the darks, as the work went on; and I am
inclined to think that they allowed time for the
work to dry thoroughly before repainting, and
did not trouble about " oiling out." (We are
told that Vandyke varnished before repainting,
but I do not know how far this information is
trustworthy.) We all know how fresh the work,
especially the thin painting, looks in a good old

1 Old Masters, 1906. No. 18: Portrait of Miss Adney ;
No. 78 : Portrait of Giardini.

Quality in Colour 159

picture ; and we all know, too, many modern
pictures that in a few years look leathery and
dead, through the practice of *' oiling out."
If the oil is mixed with the colour it is all right,
as in norland's and Wilson's work ; but if oil
is left on the surface it deadens the paint.

A work that is solidly painted throughout is
generally heavy, because through being painted
" on and on," the paint becomes opaque, and
bad in quality. But if it is painted thickly
enough to get a surface which breaks up the
light, as in the man's portrait by Hogarth,^
it is not bad ; and if it is painted solidly all
through, without alterations, there is great beauty
in the quality of the paint : partly because of
the pleasure we feel in following free execution,
and partly because the paint itself, when put on
frankly, acquires a richness of its own, an enamel-
like quality, which is beautiful. The " Old
Lady's " portrait by Frans Hals is a good example
of this ; it seems to be done at one sitting. And
some of Canaletto's work, such as the fine
picture of the " Stoneyard," seems to be painted

^ Old Masters, 1906. No. 7 : Portrait of J. St. Aubyn, Esq.

i6o Lectures on Painting

solidly throughout ; each part at one painting ;
there seems very little glazing in this picture,
or in his picture of the " Rotunda," which is
most marvellous as a piece of execution. In this
little picture, the figures and lamps, etc., though
they are touched in a conventional way, are very
expressive, and are most beautiful as paint ; and
such work as that of Wilson, of Romney, and of
Morland, who often painted solidly throughout,
has a rich, fat quality. We see it in Romney's
"Parson's Daughter." It seems only possible to
get this at one painting. Hogarth's portraits,
which are painted solidly, are heavy ; they were
evidently worked over many times. But his
"Shrimp Girl," and Gainsborough's "Portrait of
his Daughter," may be mentioned as examples
of fine quality in thin painting, done, as I think
both these works must have been, at one sitting ;
they have a beauty and freshness which no
amount of working over will give.

Many of the old painters seem to have worked
on a dark ground, usually brown. Velasquez's
"Boar Hunt" and Zurburan's "Monk" are
probably painted in this way, and probably

Quality in Colour i6i

Canaletto and Claude's were also ; and a very

beautiful and subtle kind of colour is produced

by thin opaque colour on this dark ground : it is

a kind of double colour, owing to the ground

partly showing through. It has, however, the

disadvantage of not always remaining as when

first done ; the balance of the colours changes,

owing to the thinly-painted passages becoming

more transparent with age, and darkening into

the ground : while the solid high lights remain

as they were, and stand away from the other

parts of the picture. This can be seen in a

large portrait ascribed to Vermeer of Delft, in

the work of the Caracci, of Berghem, and the

late Roman school, and in that of Lely and

Kneller. But if the painting is equally solid

throughout, as in the work of Canaletto, it does

not seem to matter if the ground is dark ; the

colour is good if it is done freshly and at once.

After all, this freshness of touch seems to be

the principal secret of quality ; the one clear touch

allowed to dry with its natural surface becomes

beautiful. If it is scraped it loses its brilliancy,

I think because the protective skin of oil is
II

1 62 Lectures on Painting

removed; in fact, the less we do to the paint,
the better paint it is. So that to do that Httle
rightly, we must know what we want to do. It
all comes back to that ; the directness of work
which is the basis of good quality, can only come
through practice, and, as it were, unsought ; and
I think the best practice, both for colour and
touch, is to be had in painting still-life, especially
flowers, which have the greatest beauty in form,
colour, and texture. There is no sense of effort
in a flower; and if we feel this, it will inspire us
to try for the same quality in our work, to try
and make our hand so sensitive and sure that
we can give good drawing with a firm touch;
so that our picture, like the flower, should look
sweet and not laboured. We have good models ;
there is Velasquez, and Chardin, of whom the
De Goncourts said, "Never perhaps was the
enchantment of mere painting carried further
than by him, in touching things uninteresting
in themselves, and transfiguring them by the
magic of execution." And the fine work of
Fantin shows that the finest art can find ex-
pression in these simple things.

Quality in Colour 163

A question has often occurred to me before an
old picture, where great richness of effect and
beautiful quahty of colour is produced by glazing
down with warm colours over a thickly painted
surface : Should the student work in this way ?
Reynolds did habitually, and the beauty and
force of colour so produced is undeniable. But
the student should, I feel sure, not try to improve
the effect of his work by such methods. We see
the result in Reynolds's work, and can follow, to
some extent, the train of thought which led him
in this direction ; but we cannot take his or any
man's experiences ready made, as the basis for
our vision of things : we must work out our prob-
lems for ourselves in the most straightforward
and simple-minded way that we can. We must
of course learn all we can about methods ; and if
we see a passage in a good picture that we do
not understand, try and think out why it was
done ; and we may be eventually able to under-
stand, and to use, as Mr. Watts did in his
later works, every method of getting rich
colour. But Watts's early work was very
straightforward ; and we cannot do better

164

Lectures on Painting

than found our vision on the men whose works
give the ordinary aspect of nature, such as
Veronese, Moroni, Velasquez, Vandyke, De
Hooghe. We cannot have better models than
these.

VIII

THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF SUBJECT
AND TREATMENT

165

1

VIII

THE RELATIVE IMPORTANCE OF SUBJECT

ICTURES may be esteemed on many

JL different grounds ; as for sentiment or
story, for design or colour, or for any of
the subdivisions of these quahties ; and any one
quaUty, if well presented, may justify a picture's
existence, even though it may be poor in other
respects. The finest pictures satisfy us on
every ground, and are complete expressions ;
subject and treatment are in perfect accord :
and painters fall in love with the work, while
others feel the sentiment.

These, of course, are the perfect works, where
masterly execution is at the service of a gift of
expression. But perfect works are rare, and if
we take the two main elements in every picture,
the subject and treatment, or method of its

AND TREATMENT

167

1 68 Lectures on Painting

presentation, we find that there is often a want
of accord between them.

It is very difficult to say which is of greater
importance, the subject or its treatment ; the
ideal is, I think, that there should be a single
impulse controlling both. A picture should be
the outcome of a desire to express something,
and the execution should naturally and willingly
direct itself towards this. If it have a story, it
should not, I think, be merely used as an excuse
for the painting ; nor, on the other hand, is a
picture good if its only merit is that it tells a
story clearly. The picture must be good as a
painting ; whatever be its subject, its presentation
as a picture is of the first importance. It should
give pleasure to the eye ; and if it is to live, it will
live by the appreciation of its technical qualities,
rather than through its subject or story : for
this may be forgotten, as has happened with
many old pictures. And it is but reasonable
to suppose that the survival, or otherwise, of
contemporary work will be determined by the
same causes as have operated in the past.

The fine still-hfe by Velasquez, which is called

Importance of Subject and Treatment 169

*' Christ in the house of Martha," may serve as
an illustration of this. As a picture of that
subject, it is badly designed ; because the real
interest is in the still-life and foreground figures,
and not in the little figures behind, which give
the title to the picture. It would not lose if
these figures were merely of casual people, or
were even left out ; the picture would remain,
as it is, an admirable study of genre. In this
case the story is but the excuse for the painting,
but the picture lives because the painting is good.
Velasquez's " Dead Warrior," on the other hand,
is a well-designed picture, because all the elements
— especially the last trail of smoke from the
extinguished lamp — are appropriate, and help to
express the idea.

I do not think a picture is better without a
subject (in the literary sense). There must be
some reason for a picture's being done, and if it
is to set forth a story so much the better, so far
as the appeal of the picture is concerned ; for
the story or sentiment of a picture will touch
many, while a work depending only on qualities
which the trained eye of painters can appreciate.

170 Lectures on Painting

makes but a small appeal ; and a picture is made
to be looked at. But there would seem to be
a kind of antagonism between the idea and the
way it is expressed ; and the relative importance
of the one or the other is, it seems to me, a
question of taste ; it depends on the taste of the
artist, and of those to whom he appeals. A bad
painter, if his work is popular, feels justified by
his public, for the sentimental picture in a shop
window gives pleasure to persons who are quite
blind to fine art ; but we may leave bad painting
out of account, and dwell rather on the artist's
problem, of the accord that should exist between
subject and treatment.

As we know, art springs from the desire to say
or to set forth something in a more expressive
way than is possible by other means, and painting
had practically for centuries no other aim than
to set forth the story of Christianity. It was
only by degrees that painters got to know and
appreciate the beauty of the " thing seen."

It may seem contradictory to say that the
beauty of so much of the early work, for instance,
depends on the impulse for expression, while we

Importance of Subject and Treatment 171

should aim mainly at technical accomplishment.
If the mere setting forth of a story at their hands
produced such beautiful results, should not a
similar impulse be good enough for us ? " Why,"
we may say, " should we trouble about methods ? "
But the old painters were masters of their
methods ; they learnt all the details of their
work, down to the preparation of their colours
and grounds — matters of which we are, as a rule,
ignorant ; and they were very methodical in
their workmanship. No doubt they tried to
make their pictures as real as they could ; but in
their day, the conscious interest in the appearance
of things, which we enjoy, did not exist ; and
many things which are commonplaces to us,
such as the contrast of light and shadow, the
relation of one apparent colour, or colour value,
to another, and the laws of atmospheric and
linear perspective, were hardly known to them.
So that their minds were left free, to express,
in the most definite and obvious way, the themes
they chose. This simple-minded attitude is one
source of the charm of primitive work ; and if
we set an untaught child nowadays to make a

172 Lectures on Painting

drawing, he will do it in the spirit of the early
artists, defining everything, and painting with
flat masses of colour, just as we see in Japanese
art, and in that of the earliest Italians. If we
ask, "How is it, then, that the early artists'
work is so beautiful ? " one can only answer
that, although their methods were primitive,
these men were great artists and had great
taste.

When a work is well imagined, all its elements
take their place naturally; the planning and
execution go together, and there is no discord.
A picture, for instance, whose subject is one of
action and excitement, will suggest this by its
abrupt contrasts, while one that is calm and
tranquil in sentiment will be delicate in its
transitions. The " Battle of St. Egidio," by
Paolo Uccello, seems to me a good example of
this ; although the method is as deliberate as
possible, the picture gives a sense of excitement
by the abrupt way the colours are disposed. One
may contrast the effect of this picture with that
of Bellini's Death of Peter Martyr," a picture
which always seems to me to show a lack of

Importance of Subject and Treatment 173

accord between the figures and their setting.
In this work the grove of trees, and the little
town, and the woodmen, are painted so beauti-
fully, that I feel the interest is rather there than
in the principal figures ; and I think that, if we
witnessed the murder, we should not have the
leisure to look at other things so deliberately as
is implied by the manner of the painting. It is a
most beautiful picture, but is there not a want
of accord somewhere ?

So much has come between us and the primi-
tives, that any attempt to work in their ways
must be conscious and deliberate ; we must
ignore so much : and if their point of view is
chosen, it must be from conviction. The pre-
Raphaelites in their early days, when their art
was a faith rather than a method, did great
things. One of the finest is the "Annunciation"
of Rosetti, which has as much feeling for the
spirit of its subject as any of the earlier works,
and follows their method. We can see that it
has been all planned out beforehand, and then
painted piece by piece. But this method was
not natural, as it was with the early men, it

174 Lectures on Painting

was deliberately adopted; and we know that
Rosetti could not keep his mind away from the
later developments of painting. And though
he attempted more difficult problems in later
years, it is doubtful whether he achieved results
as great, or kept to so high a level, as in this
early work. It is admirable in the complete
accord between subject and treatment, which,
by the way, all his work shows. " Funda-
mental brainwork " is the phrase Rosetti used
to define the essential thing in art, and it is a
phrase worth remembering.

For the sake of contrast, one may compare
Rosetti's picture with the " Annunciation " by
Crivelli, in the National Gallery. This is a
beautiful piece of work, but, as a picture, it has
very little repose ; the conception of the whole
scene — the elaborate architecture, the over-
dressed angel, and the ecclesiastic with his
model of a church — seems to me fantastic and
affected : and as a picture of the Annunciation
I think it misses the point altogether. Yet it
is fine workmanship all through, and has one
very beautiful passage ; the quiet little room

Importance of Subject and Treatment 175

of the Virgin, with the books and things all put
tidily on the shelves. This picture shows, I
think, a want of accord between subject and
treatment, but it is finely painted, and is an
example of a picture which stands through the
beauty of its workmanship.

The frescoes in the Sistine and the Vatican
hold their place in the estimation of the world
because in them great themes are treated worthily.
There is fine conception of the subjects, and the
greatest skill and beauty in the work, and they
stand away from all other things. But only
the greatest artists of all are free from bias,
either towards subject or towards virtuosity.
This latter is the direction in which the painter's
inclination leads him, and it is the right one ;
but it is well to remember that the greatest men
had their skill as a matter of course, and used
it for expression. The old painters told their
stories naively and simply, but we have such
an accumulation of precept and example that
we cannot ; so much is expected, and our work
must satisfy on so many grounds : and though
good work will always have a value, it may be

176 Lectures on Painting

the greatest, as work, still we should not make
execution an end in itself.

It is inevitable, and quite right, that a great
artist's work should influence others ; but all
schools which found themselves on a particular
master seem to end in exaggeration of his manner-
isms ; only the independent spirits keep their
place, and it is but too true in art that "many
are called, but few are chosen." One sometimes
hears an artist say, " I allow nothing to come
between me and nature.'* Admirable ! but
can we ? Does not everything that has been
done, every masterpiece which has impressed
us, come between us and nature ? We are
helped and directed to see nature, and, as Rey-
nolds says, the best road to originality is through
the study of what has been done. Modern paint-
ing owes much of its strength to the inspiration
of Velasquez, but it also owes some of its weak-
ness to the same source ; that is to say, some
artists have not really understood their master,
and though their work has an attractive loose-
ness of execution, it has neither the delicacy
of drawing nor the just tones of Velasquez :

Importance of Subject and Treatment 177

after the first surprise there is nothing more to
see. But if there is one thing more than another
that Velasquez's work reveals to the student,
it is that his easy mastery was not easily attained ;
there is clear sight, deliberation, and determina-
tion in his early pictures, but not facility; and
I should say that if ever there was a hard-working,
even a plodding student, it was Velasquez. His
early works, it seems to me, tell us this. And
even at his finest time it is much the same ; for
the " Philip," with all its freedom, is most
subtle and delicate ; and so is his " Venus."
This picture — the " Venus " — may be instanced
as showing a want of accord between subject
and treatment. The lady is not Venus, but an
ordinary model ; she is, however, so finely
painted that the lack of imagination is out-
weighed by the splendid work. If it were not
for this, the picture would be commonplace.

In one sense, too, we may say that in Rubens's
pictures subject and treatment are not always in
accord. The goddesses in the " Judgment of
Paris" are not goddesses at all, but very sub-
stantial Flemish women, nor are his Sabines
12

178 Lectures on Painting

at all Roman ; but yet, in another sense, his
pictures do show a complete accord of the subject
with the execution. We see that he realises the
story, and gives it its dramatic point ; that he
is interested in it, rather than in the technical
work of painting, which has been so thoroughly
mastered as to give him no trouble at all. His
works strike us at once by their dramatic inven-
tion, rather than by their fine painting ; and
only afterwards do we realise the fine work.
In Velasquez's " Venus " the flesh painting is
the raison d'etre of the picture.

The work of Veronese, like that of Velasquez,
lives through the fine qualities of its painting
rather than through imagination or sympathy
with his subject. The " Marriage at Cana," in
the Louvre, might almost as well represent
anything else, so little is the mind drawn to the
central incident ; and, so far as the effect of the
picture is concerned, it does not matter. The
" Vision of St. Helena," too, in the National
Gallery, is only a picture of a beautiful woman
sleeping. The formal introduction of the cherubs
with the Cross, though it points the story, adds

Importance of Subject and Treatment 179

nothing to the expression of the picture ; it is
purely a masterpiece of painting. And the
" Darius' family before Alexander " does not
touch one except through its workmanship.

The early painters' works are removed from us
by an archaism which, though it was, I think,
quite unintentional, has the effect of putting
them, as it were, in another world. The work
of Botticelli is perhaps the most striking example
of this ; it shows always perfect accord between
subject and treatment ; and his " Venus," his
" Primavera," and the Madonnas he painted,
though they always show the same type, and
are neither Christian nor pagan in sentiment,
satisfy us in the same way as Rosetti's pictures
do, as being complete expressions of a tempera-
ment— of a personal view. His " Madonna " in
the Louvre is so fine in feeling and expression,
that one feels that if she were dressed in
rags the picture would still be beautiful ; and
every element of richness and beauty that
the picture contains helps to enforce its senti-
ment: but in a work like Crivelli's "Annun-
ciation," where the human interest is nil, all

i8o Lectures on Painting

the elaborate ornamentation fails to make it
interesting.

Giorgione's Fete Champetre " is one of the
most beautiful pictures in the world ; it is, like
all that is known of his work, perfect in harmony
and accord throughout, with a noble kind of
reahsm, poetical rather than imaginative. It
is the natural expression of a temperament.
This is the basis that unites all good work, that
makes Rembrandt brother to Michelangelo ; for
with each, the thing is the presentation of some-
thing as imaged, or imagined, in his mind. The
picture made, as it were, to order, from external
elements, however able it may be, is on a very
much lower plane. And Rembrandt, Watteau,
and Hogarth may on this ground be classed with
the imaginative painters. It is interesting to
notice in Hogarth's work how expressive is
his painting, and how truly in accord is every
element in his pictures, when he follows his
own temperament ; and how commonplace and
uninteresting he becomes when — as in the
"Sigismunda" — he essays a professedly imagina-
tive subject.

Importance of Subject and Treatment i8i

In imaginative or creative work there may be,
and often is, want of accord between subject and
treatment, because the subject is not really felt ;
but imagination is a rare gift. In literal work,
which depends on the presentation of something
seen, the artist's task is easier. It is rather a
question of insight and technical skill, as in the
work of Holbein, which is, as it were, measurable,
although his level, as a draughtsman, has not
again been reached.

One may instance, as examples of fine un-
imaginative work, that of Van Eyck, Breughel,
Vermeer of Delft, and Peter de Hooghe, artists
whose work is perfect within its chosen limits ;
Steen, Metsu, Terburg, Frans Hals, Holbein,
Veronese, and Moroni ; and Velasquez, whose
vision is nearer and more natural to us than that
of other artists : the honest common-sense of his
method makes all theories seem artificial.

There are so many different excellences in
painting that one cannot say of any one direc-
tion that it is the only one to follow ; but, as
serious students, we should make it our business
to examine all schools and methods, and to get at

1 82 Lectures on Painting

principles : to find out why this or that thing
was done. For we cannot reconstruct the art
of any period ; and our art should come about
naturally, should be in touch with the thought of
the time, and as far as possible with our own
types and conditions.

The whole range of thought and time is open
to the artist ; but to paint imaginative subjects,
he must have imagination ; if not, he had better
leave such themes alone. Watts owed his
technique, and the fine qualities of his work, to
the study of the masters, but he owed them
nothing on the imaginative side ; he painted his
own inventions, and his methods are in accord
with them, so that his works are complete
expressions.

We should remember that learning to paint will
not make us artists, any more than knowledge
of grammar and logic will make us poets ; it is
a question of mental attitude and natural gifts.
The artist should have sympathy, reverence for
beauty, and the capacity for enthusiasm. His
mind as well as his hand should be trained ; he
should study out of school, as well as in ; and I

Importance of Subject and Treatment 183

cannot but think that some experience of the
world is rather an advantage to the artist than
otherwise. It helps us to know ourselves, keeps
us from narrow-mindedness, and should, by force
of contrast, increase rather than lessen our love
for our art.

In the words of Chardin, who said that " paint-
ing is an island of which he had only skirted the
coast," " let us be charitable." Diderot records
a conversation with him, d propos of the Salon of
1765. " Gentlemen," he says, " let us be
charitable. Among all the pictures here, seek
out the worst ; and understand that two thousand
unhappy ones have broken their brushes, in
despair of ever doing things even as bad as
these. Parocel, whom you call a dauber, and
who really is, if you compare him to Vernet —
this Parocel is nevertheless a man of mark,
compared with the men who started with him
and have given it up. Lemoine said that it
takes a painter thirty years to learn how to keep
to his sketch, and Lemoine was no fool. If you
will listen to me, you will learn perhaps to be
lenient. We begin at seven or eight years of age

1 84

Lectures on Painting

to draw from copies — eyes, mouths, noses, ears,
then feet and hands. Our backs are bent over
our work for a long time, then they put us before
the ' Hercules ' or the ' Torso ' ; and you have not
seen the tears that the ' Satyr,' the ' Gladiator,' the
' Venus,' the ' Antaeus,' have caused to flow. You
may be sure that these ancient masterpieces
would no longer exist to excite the jealousy of
moderns, if the students could have worked their
will on them. And then, after days and nights
before these lifeless things, they put us before the
living model, and all at once the work of our
preceding years seems to count for nothing. We
have to learn to see Nature ; and how many
have never seen and will never see her ! It is
the torment of our lives. After five or six years
before the model, we are left to follow our own
genius, if we have any. One's talent is not deter-
mined in a moment, and it is not at the first
attempt that one has the candour to avow one's
incapacity. How many attempts, some success-
ful, some unfortunate ! Precious years have gone
by before the day of disappointment and weari-
ness comes. Then what to do ? One has to

Importance of Subject and Treatment 185

find another occupation — and with the exception
of twenty or so, who show their work here
every other year to dull people, the others are
unknown, and perhaps are happier than we are ! "
He goes on to say that " what we see is the work
of a small number of those who have struggled
with more or less success, and that he who has
not felt the difficulties of art will do nothing of
any worth." I am sure that we must all feel
the truth of this.

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